This volume reviews the broad topic of welfare in nonhuman primates under human care. Chapters detail the history of primates in captivity, ethical and legal issues surrounding the use of nonhuman primates as entertainment or in research, the different approaches by which welfare is measured, and how housing, enrichment, and other conditions can foster or degrade welfare.
Since humans began keeping nonhuman primates we have made vast strides in understanding their cognitive abilities, strong social bonds, vibrant personalities, and their capacity for joy and suffering. With an increasing number of countries banning the use of great apes in biomedical research, the welfare of primates in zoos and research facilities has gained increasing attention.
This interdisciplinary work features contributors from many of the fields involved and those on both sides of the issue, thus providing an exhaustive overview of primate welfare. Readers from animal welfare science, primatology, animal testing, veterinary medicine, conservation to ethics and legislation will find this an important account.
Part 1: History of Nonhuman Primates in Captivity and Primate Welfare in different Settings
Chapter 1. The History of Primates in Zoos
Chapter 2. The History of Chimpanzees in Biomedical Research
Chapter 3. Using Primates in Captivity: Research, Conservation, and Education
Chapter 4. The Welfare of Primates in Zoo
Chapter 5. Welfare of Primates in Laboratories: Opportunities for Improvement
Chapter 6. The Welfare of Primates Kept as Pets and Entertainers
Chapter 7. Primates Under Human Care in Developing Countries: Examples from Latin America
Part 2: Assessing Nonhuman Primate Welfare
Chapter 8. Using Behavior to Assess Primate Welfare
Chapter 9. Cognitive Bias Tasks: A New Set of Approaches to Assess Welfare in Nonhuman Primates
Chapter 10. Physiological Measures of Welfare
Chapter 11. Questionnaires and Their Use in Primate Welfare
Part 3: Nonhuman Primate Housing and Husbandry
Chapter 12. Meeting Cognitive, Behavioral, and Social Needs of Primates in Captivity
Chapter 13. Primate Breeding Colonies: Colony Management and Welfare
Chapter 14. Common Husbandry, Housing, and Animal Care Practices
Chapter 15. Housing and Husbandry for Primates in Zoos
Chapter 16. Humane End Points and End of Life in Primates Used in Laboratories
Part 4: Individual Differences, Application, and Improvement of Nonhuman Primate Welfare
Chapter 17. Primate Personality and Welfare
Chapter 18. Sociality, Health, and Welfare in Nonhuman Primates
Chapter 19. Benefits of Improving Welfare in Captive Primates
Chapter 20. Enrichment
Chapter 21. Challenging Cognitive Enrichment: Examples from Caring for the Chimpanzees in the Kumamoto Sanctuary, Japan and Bossou, Guinea
Chapter 22. Training Research Primates
Part 5: Biomedical Research, Ethics, and Legislation surrounding Nonhuman Primate Welfare
Chapter 23. Arguments Against Using Nonhuman Primates in Research
Chapter 24. The Indispensable Contribution of Nonhuman Primates to Biomedical Research
Chapter 25. An unexpected symbiosis of animal welfare and clinical relevance in a refined nonhuman primate model of human autoimmune disease
Chapter 26. Animal Welfare, Animal Rights, and a Sanctuary Ethos
Chapter 27. The Welfare Impact of Regulations, Policies, Guidelines and Directives and Nonhuman Primate Welfare
Lauren M. Robinson is an animal welfare scientist and psychologist specializing in the welfare, personality, and cognition of animals and has multiple publications across these topics. She has a PhD in psychology and wrote her thesis on nonhuman primate personality and welfare. She has worked across several countries (UK, US, and Austria) and done postdoc work in animal behaviour and endocrinology, animal joy, and canid cognition and cooperation for universities including UCLA and the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna. Her work has spanned zoos, research facilities, and sanctuaries and she has worked with more than a dozen species, including half a dozen nonhuman primate species, wolves and dogs, and even the occasional Nubian goat.
Alexander Weiss has been a lecturer in Psychology at the University of Edinburgh since 2005. Prior to that, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratory of Personality and Cognition at the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore, Maryland. He did his PhD on genetic and environmental contributions to personality and subjective well-being in captive chimpanzees. Alex is a member of the Scottish Primate Research Group and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology. He has been involved continuously in leading or collaborating on projects related to personality, ageing, well-being, and health in nonhuman primates, humans, and other animals, and has co-edited three other volumes, and published many articles and chapters on his research.
"This book will appeal to a wide range of people who work with and study primates although the cost of the book may be a barrier to some."
– Giulia Ciminelli, Animal Welfare, Vol. 32, 2023