 Dear students, in this topic we shall discuss a foraging model and discuss its application to the risk and reward balance in animals foraging behaviors. Dear students, the gains and costs in finding and consuming food include the energy gained from food, energy expenditure in getting food, that is foraging, and the risk of being preyed upon while foraging. The behavioral ecologists apply a model of cost-benefit analysis to study foraging strategies of animals. This model is known as optimal foraging model. Animal foraging behaviors reflect a compromise between competing selective pressures, that is, benefits of nutrition and costs of obtaining food. The optimal foraging model analyzes the energy needed to search food, energy needed to pursue and handle food, and energy required to digest food. For an animal, energy gained from a given food item must exceed the energy costs. According to optimal foraging model, natural selection favours a foraging behavior which minimizes the costs of foraging and maximizes the benefits. Dear students, most potential cost to a forager is the risk of predation. If an animal is trying to gain maximum energy for themselves and reduces the costs of energy costs, but it is at this risk that when it is getting food, it will be preyed upon, then there will be no benefit of saving such energy. Animals, evolutionary point of view and foraging model do not adopt such behavior. In fact, animal's foraging behaviors reflect more safety from predation risk and not the hunger for gaining more food.