Behavioral responses of vervet monkey Chlorocebus pygerythrus infants in a novel fostering program

ABSTRACT

Vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus) are considered pests by farmers and homeowners. Consequent attempts to exterminate problem adult vervet monkeys often result in orphaned young offspring, which are sometimes taken to wildlife rehabilitation centers. We assessed the success of a novel fostering program at the Vervet Monkey Foundation, South Africa. Nine orphaned vervet monkeys were fostered to adult conspecific females of existing troops at the Foundation. The fostering protocol focused on reducing the time orphans spent in human rearing and involved a stepwise process of integration. We recorded the behaviors of orphans, including their interactions with their foster mother, to assess the process of fostering. Fostering success was high (89%). Orphans maintained close association with the foster mother and had little or no socio-negative and abnormal behavior. Comparison with literature showed a similar high fostering success in another vervet monkey study, regardless of the period and level of human-caregiving, and it is apparent that the duration of human care is less important than the protocol used for fostering. Nonetheless, our study has conservation relevance for vervet monkey rehabilitation.

KEYWORDS:

• Association with foster mother
• behavioral responses
• fostering
• infants
• Vervet monkey

Acknowledgments

We thank Dave du Toit and Josie du Toit, founder, and director of the Vervet Monkey Foundation, respectively, for allowing us to conduct this study. Financial support was provided by the National Research Foundation and Jan van der Schyff. The study was approved by the Animal Ethics Screening Committee of the University of the Witwatersrand (clearance number: 2017/06/39/B).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10888705.2023.2186786

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported that there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.