Hot Topics in Primate Welfare

The American Society of Primatologists (ASP) Conservation Committee’s “Keep ‘Em Wild” campaign supports the Captive Primate Safety Act (CPSA) of 2025 and is using other strategies to end the primate pet trade in the United States. Here, ASP members Marilyn Norconk, Sylvia Atsalis, Anne Savage, Katie Gerstner, and Carla Rojas, explain the primate pet trade […]

This Hot Topics in Primate Welfare brings together the science of learning with the art of compassionate care. Autumn Sorrells, MS, CMAR, explores how laboratory animal training can transcend compliance to foster both joy and agency for animals in human care. This feature draws on the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) to highlight how […]

This Hot Topics in Primate Welfare, we are featuring the work of the two ASP 2025 Primate Welfare Award winners. Amanda Bartlett, MRes, received the award for her project “Behavior and Vertical Space Use of Captive Callimico (Callimico goeldii): Implications for Welfare.” Rhiannon Schultz, Ph.D., received the award for her project “Developmental and Health-related Variation […]

For the last quarter of 2025, we are featuring an interview with the 2023 awardee of the Melinda Novak Welfare Grant, Missy Painter describing her project, Exploring conspecific vocalization playback as a primate welfare tool. Melissa (“Missy”) Painter, M.S. currently works at Johns Hopkins University as Manager of the Behavioral Management Program for laboratory research […]

For this quarter’s Hot Topics in primate welfare, ASP is featuring the use of Artificial Intelligence for research and enrichment across settings and species. We interviewed three experts who use Artificial Intelligence in their research and welfare programs: Dr. Fay Clark (Senior Lecturer, School of Psychological Science, University of Bristol, UK), Otto Brooks (PhD Candidate, […]

This Hot Topics in Primate Welfare, we are featuring the work of the two ASP 2024 Primate Welfare Award winners. Jaclyn Allen received the award for her project “The use of guanfacine to mediate anxiety-related reactivity and reduce associated agonistic behavior in breeding male pigtail macaques (Macaca nemestrina).” Jose Tello received the award for his […]

For the last quarter of 2024, we are featuring the awardee of the first Melinda Novak Welfare Grant, Tabor Whitney, and her project, “Associations between ecological attributes, the gut microbiome, and glucocorticoid metabolites, and their impact on the welfare of Mexican mantled howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata mexicana) in Los Tuxtlas, Mexico.” Ms. Whitney is a […]

Here, we highlight an important collaboration that emerged between the American Society of Primatologists (ASP) and the Association of Primate Veterinarians (APV) known as the APV-ASP Working Group. The Working Group is comprised of equal numbers of APV primate veterinarians and ASP primate behavioral scientists. The mission of the Working Group is to foster collaboration […]

For this quarter’s Hot Topics in primate welfare, ASP is featuring the use of touchscreens, a tool that opens new avenues for research and enrichment that can be used across settings and species. We interviewed three primatologists who use touchscreens as part of their research and welfare programs, including Dr. Chris Martin, Dr. Gill Vale, […]

For the first quarter of 2024, ASP’s Hot Topics in Primate Welfare is featuring the research of Negin Valizadegan, who won the ASP Primate Welfare Award in 2022 for her project titled: “Blood microbiome compositions in humans and captive non-human primates and their variations in sensitivity to bacterial molecules.” Dr. Valizadegan has a PhD in […]