Response of captive squirrel monkeys to people.

Abstract

People play an important role in the welfare of nonhuman animals in zoos. The aim of this study is to find out if the behavior of squirrel monkeys maintained in Faunia, a zoological and botanical garden located in Madrid (Spain), and the height they occupy in their enclosure is associated with the flow of visitors and the keeper presence. Although the effects of visitors and keepers were difficult to separate, the response to increasing flow of visitors was not linear, being usually associated with greater individual variability in responses. In a more precise way, when the flow of visitors increased, feeding and locomotion decreased, while resting and interactions with people increased. Although decreasing of positive behaviors as feeding seems to indicate that monkeys perceive high numbers of visitors as a nuisance, interactions with people suggest that those could consider visitors as a kind of environmental enrichment.