Primate facilities and environmental enrichment: An ecological and evolutionary perspective (1993)

Bercovitch, F., Kessler, M. J.

Abstract

The environmental enrichment program of the Caribbean Primate Research Center is guided by an evolutionary and ecological perspective. The evolutionary perspective suggests that primates should be housed in enclosures that provide a social and physical environment that resembles their natural surroundings as much as possible. The ecological perspective emphasizes the use of recycled products as enrichment devices as a way of decreasing the environmental degradation affecting the habitat of wild primates and increasing the preservation of their natural habitat. Several inanimate enrichment options for group-housed rhesus macaques are described.