Stress on chickens with varying levels of recreational use of habitats

In 2007/2008, a study on stress hormone measurements from the solution of chickens in the field was published (Thiel et al. 2008). This was the reason for a practical project with this simple method. It should check whether in Gesäuse/Gscheidegg, due to the high frequency of ski tourers, disturbances on the local porridge population could already be detected. The hypotheses at that time were simple: Where tourers are common, chickens show higher levels of stress hormone than in an unencumbered comparison area. Unexpectedly, however, the stress levels in the heavily polluted areas were significantly lower than in the unencumbered areas at that time. It seemed worth checking whether additional habitat-related parameters could explain these patterns, or whether the porridge might have been used to regular disturbances and therefore showed no reaction (Fowler 1999; Romero & Wikelski 2002).