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Increasing public understanding of the complexity of wild ungulates can improve animal welfare and advance global conservation efforts of these keystone species. Unfortunately, shaping public opinion on wild species is challenging because personal experience with wildlife is declining, popular education is still biased towards the predator instead of the prey, and scientific research is more difficult to conduct on wild ungulates compared to those on farms, in zoos, or otherwise in captivity. Nevertheless, studies of cognition, individuality, and intelligence of wild ungulates are increasing. I briefly highlight some major results from my own work on complexity in wild elk, illustrating how such studies can help management and conservation, in addition to improve our understanding of how ungulates are more similar to humans than previously thought. I argue that ultimately the greatest challenge may not be in expanding our academic knowledge of complexity in wild and captive ungulates, but in using that knowledge to inform those best positioned to take meaningful action to improve animal welfare and implement wildlife conservation strategies.

Individual variation in behaviour adds another layer of complexity to studies of animal responses to fear and risk, but when individual responses are consistent, and correlated with other behaviours, these patterns can provide a structure that furthers our understanding. I interpret Beauchamp's review of vigilance and fear from the perspective of my own studies of elk personality. Wild elk responses to changing stimuli (benign or aversive) illustrate how personality is a key factor in explaining variation in vigilance and fear behavior. Personality even influences how wildlife can learn to assess risk and adjust their fear responses accordingly.

Context Optimal foraging strategies can be influenced at the group level by population density, which can increase competition, hunger, and activity levels. Optimal foraging can also be influenced at the individual level by personality, which in part governs how individuals assess risk versus reward. Aims The purpose of this study was to quantify the influence of population density on risk-taking. I focused on captive elk that had previously been studied in tandem with wild elk in order to quantify personality trait characteristics. I hypothesised that risk-taking would be shown to be a density-dependent affect, in addition to varying individually. Methods Automated cameras recorded visitation to four rotating treatments sites in each of high and low density pens, and which had either: forage, a novel object, forage + novel object, or a control site. Novel objects were regularly changed to elicit a spectrum of responses ranging from neofilia to neophobia. Selection or avoidance of sites was determined by comparing elk visitation to visits to control sites. The experiment was done in summer when natural forage was most abundance, and in again in autumn when natural forage was limited. Key results High density elk showed year-round selection for all treatment sites. In summer low density elk showed weak selection for forage and forage + novel and no selection for novel objects, and no selection for any site in autumn. These patterns showed that elk in the high density pen, which were in poorer condition, had to increase their levels of both activity and risk taking. Neither elk pen exhibited any group-wide avoidance of novel objects, indicating a group-wide gradient of neophobia to neofilia, known personality traits in elk. Conclusions These results show that risk-taking behaviour can be a density dependent effect. This increase in neofilia may be driven by hunger stress, but also through increases in competition that may favour elk of certain personalities. Implications Increasing density may increase the prevalence of both neofilia and other personality traits correlated with neofilia, which include aggression, and so may contribute to increasing human–wildlife conflicts in areas where human disturbance has resulted in ungulate hyperabundance.