Captive Care Working Party

The Captive Care Working Party (CCWP) provides expert advice to interested parties within and outside of the PSGB, and co-ordinates action, on matters relating to the welfare of primates in laboratories and other captive settings. The Working Party focuses on practical issues, deferring discussion of the ethical issues associated with primate use to more appropriate bodies. However, our organisation is committed to the Three Rs of humane experimental technique:

Replacement of animals with humane alternatives;
Reduction in the number of animals used;
Refinement to reduce to a minimum the suffering experienced by the animals throughout their lives; not just during experiments, but also as a result of the way they are acquired, housed, cared for and transported.

The CCWP holds an annual meeting prior to the PSGB's Winter Meeting, and meets at other times as necessary. Contact between members is maintained through email. At the annual meeting we review developments in laws and practice, issues and news relating to captive primates. Typically, our review will include changes to UK or European legislation; establishment or closing of research facilities; and news from the zoo community. We produce yearly reports and draft policy letters for PSGB Council.

Current areas of interest include:

Acquisition and transport
Housing and husbandry
Training with positive reinforcement techniques
Weaning policy
Management of breeding colonies

Membership of the CCWP is open to all members of the PSGB but primarily is attractive to people with specialist knowledge of, or a professional interest in, the care of primates in captivity. Currently, membership comprises both researchers and animal welfare representatives who have experience with a range of primate species (New World monkeys, Old World monkeys, and apes) in a variety of captive settings. One of the challenges facing the CCWP is to form stronger links between all institutions housing primates, particularly research facilities, zoos and rescue centres.

Relevant materials

Annual reports of CCWP

Captive Care Grants

**Next deadline 31st March 2008**

In addition, to the activities listed above, the Working Party administers the PSGB Captive Care Grants. These are awards, typically not exceeding £750, to assist research of benefit to primate welfare in captivity and primate welfare education. Although the financial value of the grants is quite small, it should be remembered that approval from the PSGB is invaluable when applying for money from other sources.

Publications with support of CCWP grants:

Avanti Mallapur, Natalie Waran and Anindya Sinha (2005) Factors influencing the behaviour and welfare of captive lion-tailed macaques in Indian zoos. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, Volume 91, Issues 3-4, Pages 337-353
Avanti Mallapur, Anindya Sinha and Natalie Waran (2005) Influence of visitor presence on the behaviour of captive lion-tailed macaques (Macaca silenus) housed in Indian zoos Applied Animal Behaviour Science, Volume 94, Issues 3-4, Pages 341-352

Various documents relating to the PSGB Captive Care grants are available in PDF (Adobe Acrobat) format. You will need a copy of the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software to read/print the PDF files. This is widely available, but can certainly be found at the Adobe WWW site.

These documents are also available as RTF files. These can be read by almost any word processor including Word Perfect and Microsoft Word.

For more information and advice please contact:

Dr Sonya P. Hill

Convenor, PSGB Captive Care Working Party

Chester Zoo
Upton
Chester
CH2 1LH

E-mail: ccwp@psgb.org