The 1985 amendment to the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) requires the provision of an environment """"""""adequate to promote the psychological well-being"""""""" of laboratory primates. A general consensus among primatologists, veterinarians, and technical personnel is the benefit of increasing the complexity of the laboratory primate's cage to promote the animal's well-being. Recently published USDA regulations delineate methods to promulgate the AWA amendment. These methods include both social and nonsocial forms of environmental enrichment. To meet this congressional mandate, the Laboratory of Environmental Enrichment (LEE) of the Laboratory Sciences Section has written an environmental enrichment plan for the intramural nonhuman primate program at NIH. To support the recommendations made in the NIH Nonhuman Primate Intramural Management Plan, LEE tests and implements various non-social environmental enrichment techniques including the invention of an innovative foraging device (patent pending). The success of such a program validated by some form of monitoring and evaluation process is considered by the NIH an essential component of the Primate Management Plan. The LEE provides educational seminars on this topic. All day conferences, half-day workshops, and a series of brief presentations made in conjunction with the Office for Protection from Research Risks, and steady publication of research results are just a few examples of this educational effort.
