BEHAVIORAL MANAGEMENT OF NONHUMAN PRIMATES

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Maintaining a healthy, productive research colony is crucial to the ability to support diverse programs such as vaccine development for AIDS. Behavioral management programs for captive nonhuman primates include the application of environmental enrichment techniques, socialization strategies, and animal training procedures to promote the welfare of the animals. Various aspects of behavioral management programs will benefit from scientific evaluation, and this project includes some such evaluations. There have been reports on findings related to chimpanzee social learning and how this capacity of chimpanzees can be used to help improve our care for them, particularly with regard to how we train chimpanzees. NHP literature was reviewed on welfare to determine how this body of work could be applied to understanding the welfare of another species (elephant) that is much less studied. Two brief entries into an "encyclopedia" of animal behavior were written on the topics of chimpanzees and captivity. Reports of various evaluations of positive reinforcement training were reviewed. One project assessed wounding rates in chimpanzee groups across many zoos.