Laboratory of Hormone Measurement, Department of Physiology, Federal University of Rio Grande Do Norte, Natal, Brazil.
Postgraduation Program in Psychobiology, Federal University of Rio Grande Do Norte, Natal, Brazil.
J Appl Anim Welf Sci. 2022 Jul-Sep;25(3):297-309. doi: 10.1080/10888705.2021.1968863. Epub 2021 Sep 1.
Animal welfare is critical to buffer stress in captive animals and to ensure the reliability of data from studies. The most usual environmental enrichment technique (EE) for social non-human primates is the social enrichment. However, some experimental protocols require keeping individuals isolated, thus demanding other types of EE. We tested in six adult females, single housed for experimental purpose, the stress buffering efficacy of a structural enrichment protocol (SEP) and SEP in combination with a foraging enrichment (FSEP) using fecal cortisol and behaviors to infer stress levels. Both types of EE improved welfare in different ways, while cortisol levels decreased with both EE as compared to the baseline, autogrooming, and piloerection increased after FSEP probably due to the new foods. Therefore, these findings support alternative practices of EE when social animals are living in isolation and reinforce the positive role of structural and food enrichment for decreasing stress markers. It also encourages studies on welfare with females, since its use as an animal model has increased.
动物福利对于缓冲圈养动物的压力以及确保研究数据的可靠性至关重要。对于非人类社会性灵长类动物最常用的环境丰富化技术（EE）是社会丰富化。然而，一些实验方案要求个体隔离，因此需要其他类型的 EE。我们在六只成年雌性个体中进行了测试，这些个体因实验目的而单独饲养，使用粪便皮质醇和行为来推断压力水平，以评估结构性丰富化方案（SEP）和 SEP 与觅食丰富化（FSEP）相结合的压力缓冲效果。这两种 EE 以不同的方式改善了福利，而与基线相比，皮质醇水平在两种 EE 后均降低，梳理毛发和竖毛在 FSEP 后增加，可能是由于新食物的原因。因此，这些发现支持在社交动物隔离时采用替代的 EE 实践，并强调结构性和食物丰富化对于降低应激标志物的积极作用。它还鼓励对雌性动物福利进行研究，因为它作为动物模型的使用有所增加。
