UW-Madison College of Letters and Science "Macaque Enrichment" Doc.

Of the 4 documents I recieved form the university on May 10, 2021, after 142 days of waiting, the College of Letters and Science was, in a way, the oddest.

These redactions are odd and questionable. The use of macaques at the School of Letters and Science generally takes place at the Harlow lab, just across an alley form the Primate Center. Why redact that location? Maybe if crazy animal rights fanatics learned that monkeys are being experimented on in the building that used to house and is named after Harry Harlow, they would go crazy? Who doesn't know that the Harlow lab experiments on monkeys? And why is the title of something staff are required to read hidden? Strange indeed. Or just silly and/or dumb.

It's doubly weird and silly because anyone can google "Harlow lab" and immediately see a picture of it and the address and phone number. And if you go to their webpage, you see immediately that the Director is (still) Chris Coe.

Whatever, here's the document:
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
COLLEGE OF LETTERS AND SCIENCE
STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES
SOP #325 DATE ISSUED: April 13, 2018
TITLE: Macaque Enrichment

There is no mention of what to do when a monkey starts exhibiting signs of mental illness. Maybe that's in yet another document. We'll see.

Primate Environmental Enrichment at UW-Madison - The Plan

The image above is from the University of Wisconsin, Madison's Primate Research Center's Animal Services webpage. (The splash images rotate periodically.) I think it more fair to point to this image rather than a generic image from another source.

The Animal Welfare Act (Public Law 89-544) was passed in 1966. For the most part, laboratories using animals continued their business as usual. Exercise requirements for dogs and psychological well-being for primates were not mandated until 1985. The law requires laboratories using primates to have a plan that provides an environment that promotes their psychological well-being. This plan musy be available to USDA inspectors on request. It took the University of Wisconsin, Madison 142 days provide me with this copy of their legally required plan. Oddly, the plan is dated 2020. Did they have to write it because I requested it? It woundn't surprise me.

The introduction captures the essence of the plan:

The Environmental Enhancement Program at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center (WNPRC) is dedicated to promoting and enhancing psychological well-being for the entire non-human primate (NHP)colony while ensuring that our animals are free from unnecessary pain and distress. By utilizing a combination of environmental enrichment, behavior modification, and positive reinforcement, the program attempts to promote a diverse array of species typical behaviors and decrease the occurrence of stereotypical and self-injurious behavior (SIB) by increasing activity.

Tellingly, the plan merely attempts to decrease the incidence of profound psychological distress. There is nothing in the Animal Welfare Act that mandates success. Everyone who takes the time to learn about the issue knows that it is next to impossible to maintain the psychological well-being of macaques kept for years in small steel cages.

There is nothing in the law that says the plan must be successful.

The Animal Wefare Act does though stipulate who must have sufficient and appropriate authority to assure that adequate veterinary care is provided at all times and that he or she is able to oversee the adequacy of all aspects of animal care and use for all animals. That person must be the attending veterinarian. The attending veterinarian at the UW-Madison is Saverio “Buddy” Capuano.

I doubt his situation is unique, though I've not looked closely at the publishing histories of attending vets at the other large primate labs aroung the country. In Capuano's case, he is a coauthor of numerous papers detailing a host of terible things done to monkeys that he has had a hand in.

So it can't come as too much of a surprise that monkeys at the university are caged alone for years on end, that there are monkeys pulling their hair out, pacing endlessly, whose lives are pretty much a living hell.

Look at the picture at the top of this essay. It must be an example of what the university, Capuano, et al consider an example of good care. But these young monkeys are in a box and will be for their entire lives. Compare their likely life experiences with those of wild rhesus macaques.

In any case, here's one more document I received in response to my request: cage size exemptions.

Environmental Enrichment at UW Madison - pair housing macaques

Just about a month ago, I suggested that the University of Wisconsin might be in violation of the Animal Welfare Act because they had been dragging their feet for so long in providing me with copies of documents that they are required to have on hand and ready to be reviewed by a UDSA Animal Welfare inspector.

I wrote to the state Attorney General's Office about the length of time I had been waiting -- The AG's office says on its website that though there is no specified time requirement in the law, that two weeks is a reasonable amount of time. Within a few days I received the documents that I had been waiting 142 days for. The cover letter was undated; the records were made available to me on May 10, 2021 (see below). I asked for them on December 19, 2020.

Of the four documents I received, the pair housing exemption list provides the most insight into the living conditions of monkeys at the university. The NIH Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare booklet "Macaques," a part of it's series Enrichment for NonHuman Primates, says:

Because of the intrinsic social nature of macaques, pair or group housing of compatible animals is extremely important. It is well-known that raising a macaque alone, without the company of other macaques of the same species, will result in that animal expressing a pattern of abnormal behaviors that can become self-destructive. Even the behavior profiles of adult animals housed alone can degenerate into inciting these abnormal behaviors, which may include repeated pacing, circling, or somersaulting; hyper-aggression; depression; and self-injurious behavior, including hair plucking or self-biting.

Everyone even a tiny bit interested and even minimally informed seems to know that keeping macaques in cages by themselves is harmful to them. The effects seems to be significantly worse than keeping humans in solitary confinement. And yet, if I am reading the document correctly (there is no one to ask), on or about the day the document was printed, 67 macaques were in cages by themselves.

One female monkey, rh2347, was apparently moved to a cage with another monkey on February 25, 2021, afer 12 years of being alone.

Three monkeys have been cages alone since 2013. Six since 2014. Eleven since 2015.

The Wisconsin National Primate Research is a hideous place, all the monkey labs are. They all operate in pretty much the same way.

View Message

CC: lisa.hull@wisc.edu;
Subject: Rick Bogle Public Records Request :: P001468-121920
Body:
RE: PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST of December 19, 2020.
Reference # P001468-121920.

Dear Requester:

I write in response to your request under the Wisconsin Public Records Law, Wisconsin Statutes §§19.31-19.39, dated December 19, 2020 for, “the university's primate psychological enhancement plan or (plans) and any exemptions that have been granted from January 1, 2020 to present. (For reference see 9 CFR § 3.81).”

Attached please find 33-pages of records in response to your request.

We have redacted or withheld the following categories of information for the reasons given below:

[blah, blah, blah...]

Sincerely,
Lynn Rusch
Senior Administrative Program Specialist
University of Wisconsin – Madison