Facilities housing captive animals are full of staff who, every day, interact with the animals under their care. The expertise and familiarity of staff can be used to monitor animal welfare by means of questionnaires...
The lack of appropriate stimuli associated with captive environments has been documented to cause several behavioural and physiological issues in captive species, including loss of natural behaviours, psychopathologies and decreased reproductive success. Providing free-ranging, naturalistic...
There has been increased recognition of the 3Rs in laboratory animal management over the last decade, including improvements in animal handling and housing. For example, positive reinforcement is now more widely used to encourage primates...
Self-injurious behavior (SIB) is a pathology observed in both humans and animals. In humans, SIB has been linked to various mental health conditions that are also associated with significant sleep disruption. In rhesus macaques, SIB...
Play is sometimes considered as an indicator of positive animal welfare. However, it is not yet sufficiently understood whether or not social play among adults can be considered as such an indicator because it is...
Abnormal behavior occurs in a number of captive nonhuman primate species and is often used as an indicator of welfare. However, reported levels of abnormal behavior often vary across species, making general welfare judgments difficult...
Social separation is an increasingly used strategy to experimentally assess psychogenic stress in nonhuman primates, yet it is also inherently required for captive management. Surprisingly, little is known on the effects of an individual left...
More than a quarter of a century has elapsed since the Animal Welfare Act mandated that research facilities develop and follow a plan to promote the psychological well-being of captive primates. Since passage of this...
Object play in primates is viewed as generally having no immediate functional purpose, limited for the most part to immature individuals. At the proximate level, the occurrence of object play in immatures is regarded as...
As part of the enrichment programme at King’s College London (KCL) and in keeping with the guidelines of Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986 (ASPA) and the 3R’s (Russell and Burch), technologists have taken an active...