Just as criminal profilers study the behavior of their suspects in order to understand their state of mind and predict their actions, wildlife managers can use the behavior of animals to get insights into their state and the state of their environments.

The conservation behavior framework identifies two types of behavioral indicators – indicators that can reveal the effects of anthropogenic activities before a numerical response is evident, and indicators used to evaluate the effectiveness of management programs at their early stages. While the context in which the two types of indicators are used is very different, their mechanism is identical. In fact, the same behavioral indicator can be used to identify the detrimental effects of an anthropogenic disturbance, and later on to indicate whether the management program aimed at mitigating the disturbance is working effectively. We therefore chose to not divide the two chapters in this section according to the designation of the behavioral indicators, but rather to do it according to their scale of reference.

Behavioral indicators can operate on staggeringly different scales: From assessing the health and well-being of a single individual to helping predict climate change across the globe. However, in this case, the differences in scale of reference usually involve very different behaviors and call for a diversity of management approaches. We refer to behavioral indicators that can inform on the individual state of the animals observed and on the state of their respective populations as “direct behavioral indicators.” When behavioral indicators tell us about other populations within the community, the state of the ecosystem or about environmental changes on a global scale, we term them “indirect behavioral indicators.” Chapters 11 and 12 of this section give an overview and discuss the usefulness of direct and indirect behavioral indicators, respectively.