From sterile to stimulating: Six years of management and husbandry changes to Edinburgh Zoo's monkey house (1997)

Catlow, G.

Abstract

We provide branching from ceiling to the floor, thus maximising space utilisation. .... Food prepared into bite pieces could not be fed on the roofs for obvious reasons, but by covering the mesh with a layer of straw some of the food is retained and creates an additional foraging area. This has in fact doubled the area, and has reduced aggression particularly with the group of lion-tailed macaques, where the male used to dominate feed times. He now collects the food that falls onto the floor whilst the rest of the group forage through the straw on the roof.... Feeding five times a day may appear to be a time consuming occupation, but our routine ensured we checked or monitored each species three times a day, so during the checks we added a feed, the other two feeds were already accounted for in the original routine. The time budget used by our primates for foraging and feeding now more closely resembles their wild counter parts.