Escape behavior: dynamic decisions and a growing consensus

- Virtually all animals must escape predators, and the study of escape behavior has exploded in recent years.
- Escaping from predators includes decisions about when and how to escape, and duration of hiding following escape.
- Escape decisions are economically influenced by both the costs and benefits of escape.
- The importance of costs and benefits varies by taxa.
- Human presence and activities modify evolved escape decisions and escape behavior provides a metric of human disturbance.

There has been a recent flurry of theoretical, empirical, and comparative research in the remarkably integrative field of animal escape behavior. We highlight several new insights, mostly those that have emerged from the economic study of flight initiation distance (FID). Recent theoretical developments have shown that the logic applied to understanding FID also applies to other situations and that escape behavior is influenced by its benefits and costs, but the importance of these factors varies by taxa. In some cases, escape behavior is part of a compensatory response animals use to manage risk. Escape behavior varies geographically and can be used to inform wildlife management.