Chapter 4.17. Vertical Space Enhancement (2007)

LAREF [Laboratory Animal Refinement and Enrichment Forum]

Abstract

Most of the primates' natural environment is fixed. Even a tree is fixed; it's only at the end of branches where a monkey in nature would have the sensation of anything like a swinging perch. A fixed perch is a great thing for a monkey. We used to hang numerous swings and movable raised structures into the enclosure of our group-housed cynos, but we could see very clearly that they prefer the stable perches or platforms. Our animals very rarely used ropes or swings. The only ones using those elements were babies and juveniles. In the caging systems we use there is no bottom tier. All cages are 0.6 m off of the floor. Each cage is furnished with a 1 m high perch; so it is pretty much at human eye level -- 1.6 m height. It seems to me that the animals feel relaxed when they sit on their perch and can meet me at eye level. A low perch has little or no value as a safe resting location from our monkeys point of view.