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.