A new environmental enrichment device, termed a “foraging/grooming board,” was presented to 8 individually housed rhesus monkeys for the explicit purpose of reducing the level of aberrant behaviors manifested by these animals. The device, consisting of a piece of plexiglass covered with artificial fleece, had particles of food treats rubbed into it and was attached to the outside of each animal's home cage. All animals foraged from the board to the point that a significant reduction in the level of abnormal behavior was noted. Most animals also groomed the fleece covering the board, utilizing the same motor patterns that would be directed toward grooming another monkey. These boards are inexpensive to construct and easy to sanitize, and do not require placing animal facility personnel at risk to maintain them.

Science-based performance standards offer a viable means of reducing regulatory burden while ensuring that research animal welfare and high-quality research data are realized. Unlike rigid regulations, science-based performance standards evolve as new information becomes available, thereby allowing new discoveries to be implemented in a timely manner and in a way that more effectively benefits the animals and the science. The implementation of performance standards requires a well-coordinated institutional team composed of the administration, research staff, the institutional animal care and use committee, professional and technical animal care personnel, occupational health and safety staff, and physical plant staff. This animal program team is best supported in an institutional environment that reflects a culture of care, compliance, and responsibility. In such a culture, the professional judgment exercised by the team is well grounded in meeting the diverse needs of the program's customers, who include the animals, the researchers, and research stakeholders such as the public. The institutional culture of care, compliance, and responsibility fosters workplace integrity, an ethics-based decision-making paradigm, sound understanding of institutional expectations through good communication and clear lines of authority, the hiring and retention of trained and well-qualified individuals, and a system for continuous development and improvement of the program.

For millennia, relationships have developed between animals and people through the context of work, sport, companionship, or some combination of these activities. Often, a bond between animal and human results, which is based on affection and/or respect. In the research environment, it is not uncommon for a bond to develop between the investigator, veterinarian, and/or animal care technicians and the animals with which they work; and such a bond can be just as strong for a mouse as it is for a dog. Circumstances that foster the formation of these bonds include the close and frequent contact between the researchers and their animals during studies or during training of animals to particular tasks, the long periods of time many research animals live in the facilities (often years), the dependency of the animals on the animal care staff for their daily needs, and the veterinarian/patient relationship, which is not unlike that of private practitioners and client-owned animals. In addition, overlaying the fundamental relationship with the research animal are special bonds that can form with certain animals. Among those that engender a special attachment are animals that are particularly friendly, amusing, or intelligent; animals requiring extra supportive care; animals that show courage; animals that represent a milestone in a particular scientific advancement; and animals that reflect humans' own strengths and foibles. The development of these relationships is enriching to both personnel and animals inasmuch as people who care about their animals are committed to promoting and ensuring the well-being of those animals.

Many aspects of the research animal's housing environment are controlled for quality and/or standardization. Of recent interest is the potential for environmental enrichment to have unexpected consequences such as unintended harm to the animal, or the introduction of variability into a study that may confound the experimental data. The effects of enrichment provided to nonhuman primates, rodents, and rabbits are described to illustrate that the effects can be numerous and may vary by strain and/or species. Examples of parameters measured where no change is detected are also included because this information provides an important counterpoint to studies that demonstrate an effect. In addition, this review of effects and noneffects serves as a reminder that the provision of enrichment should be evaluated in the context of the health of the animal and research goals on a case-by-case basis. It should also be kept in mind that the effects produced by enrichment are similar to those of other components of the animal's environment. Although it is unlikely that every possible environmental variable can be controlled both within and among research institutions, more detailed disclosure of the living environment of the subject animals in publications will allow for a better comparison of the findings and contribute to the broader knowledge base of the effects of enrichment.