Primates: Present food items whole instead of processed

How is the evidence assessed?
  • Effectiveness
    80%
  • Certainty
    50%
  • Harms
    0%

Study locations

Key messages

  • One before-and-after study in the USA found that when macaques were presented with whole foods instead of chopped foods the amount consumed and time spent feeding increased.

 

About key messages

Key messages provide a descriptive index to studies we have found that test this intervention.

Studies are not directly comparable or of equal value. When making decisions based on this evidence, you should consider factors such as study size, study design, reported metrics and relevance of the study to your situation, rather than simply counting the number of studies that support a particular interpretation.

Supporting evidence from individual studies

  1. A before-and-after study in 1989 in the USA (Smith et al. 1989) found that when lion-tailed macaques Macaca silenus were presented with whole foods instead of chopped foods the total amount of food consumed and the time spent feeding increased. The average macaque consumed 395g of whole food compared to 306g of chopped food per day. Time spend feeding was greater, as a result of increased consumption and processing requirements, when whole foods were offered. A group of 12 lion-tailed macaques was given fruits and vegetables whole or chopped on alternate days. Feeding data was collected by one observer between 09:00 h and 11:00 h, observing one animal’s behaviour each day for two consecutive days for the chopped control and whole treatment totalling 40 days of observations.    (CJ)

    Study and other actions tested
Please cite as:

Jonas, C.S., Timbrell, L.L., Young, F., Petrovan, S.O., Bowkett, A.E. & Smith, R.K. (2020) Management of Captive Animals. Pages 527-553 in: W.J. Sutherland, L.V. Dicks, S.O. Petrovan & R.K. Smith (eds) What Works in Conservation 2020. Open Book Publishers, Cambridge, UK.

 

Where has this evidence come from?

List of journals searched by synopsis

All the journals searched for all synopses

Management of Captive Animals

This Action forms part of the Action Synopsis:

Management of Captive Animals
Management of Captive Animals

Management of Captive Animals - Published 2018

Captive Animal Synopsis

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