A team of researchers has found a simple and unique way to significantly reduce stress levels, and increase the welfare of monkeys living in a popular zoo. The study, carried out by Durham University with Chester Zoo, found that planting a meter-wide barrier of tropical shrubs between the monkeys’ glass-fronted enclosures and the visitors’ viewing platforms reduced the animals’ stress-related behavior by more than half.
The techniques developed in the study have now won the praise of animal welfare scientists, who have awarded the research team with the prestigious Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW) Wild Animal Welfare Award for their work.
The study investigated the stress levels of a type of monkey known as a mandrill, which is one of the exotic animals bred at Chester Zoo, in North West England. Seven mandrills – which are the world’s largest monkey species and whose native habitat is the tropical rainforests of Central and Western Africa, are kept at the 110-acre Zoo. In the wild, mandrills have been classed as vulnerable (World Conservation Union Red List of Threatened Species 2006) meaning that they face a high risk of extinction in the medium-term future.
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