Stereotypical Behaviors in Chimpanzees Rescued from the African Bushmeat and Pet Trade

Abstract

Many orphaned chimpanzees whose mothers are illegally killed for their meat (bushmeat) in Africa are sold as pets or kept caged at hotels and businesses to attract tourists. As a result of being separated from their mothers and other chimpanzees at an early age, and spending years in impoverished captive conditions, some of these individuals engage in abnormal behaviors, including stereotypically scratching at their flesh and repetitively rocking back and forth. This paper presents case studies of Poco and Safari, two chimpanzees who were rescued by sanctuaries after living alone on display for humans at businesses for the first 7 to 8 years of their lives. Decades after their rescue, they still engage in stereotypical behaviors as a result of the psychological and physical trauma they endured early on. This paper combines data from in depth interviews with caregivers and direct observations of abnormal behaviors to assess psychological distress in captive-living chimpanzees. Our results highlight some lesser known harms of the bushmeat trade and the detrimental life-long consequences that keeping chimpanzees as “pets” can have on their mental health.

Early life experience and alterations of group composition shape the social grooming networks of former pet and entertainment chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

“…While high levels of self-grooming frequently have been associated with undesirable behaviours and seen as an indicator of lacking welfare [63,64], to our knowledge high levels of social grooming have not been suggested to be a welfare issue yet. A successful integration of a new chimpanzee or the formation of a new group is, among others, often reflected in affiliative interactions with a variety of partners [65][66][67], rather than simply the absence of aggression [30].…”

Relative response to digital tablet devices and painting as sensory enrichment in captive chimpanzees

“…Definitions of displacement behavior (abbreviated DB) follow Schino, Perretta, Taglioni, Monaco and Troisi () and Reamer, Tooze, Coulson and Semple (), Lopresti‐Goodman, Kameka and Dube () as well as personalized observations for specific behaviors to the sample group. The general definition of stereotypy (abbreviated STB) is modeled after Mason ().…”

Rehabilitation and Socialization of Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) Used for Entertainment and as Pets: An 8-Year Study at Fundació Mona

“…Prolonged captivity, sensory deprivation, and use in laboratories have been shown to contribute to behavioral pathologies in nonhuman primates (Anderson 2010;Bellanca and Crockett 2002;Bradshaw et al 2008;Kalcher et al 2008;Llorente and Campi 2014;Novak 2003;Rodríguez-Rodríguez et al 2010), including abnormal behaviors such as floating limb (Bentson et al 2010), self-biting (Reinhardt and Rossell 2001), self-injury (Wielebnowski et al 2002), self-clasping (Buttelmann et al 2008), pacing (Rybiski Tarou et al 2005), rocking (Lopresti-Goodman et al 2012), object attachment (Janson 2012), coprophagy (Nash et al 1999), and regurgitation-reingestion (Baker and Easley 1996). Poor conditions early in life may also affect personality (Martin 2005) and the development of mental disorders later in life (Brüne et al 2004;Ferdowsian et al 2011Ferdowsian et al , 2012Troisi, 2005).…”