TPC NEWS  Vol.6  No.2,  Summer, 1987  (Whole No. 12)

                (English Summary) (Rvised Edition)

Page-3 Essay: Importance of the development of rearing system for infant monkeys

     About  20 years ago,  I first published my opinion that  breeding  nonhuman   primates under artificial conditions was needed.   The opinion has been proved to be  basically right with many researches on breeding achieved during the past years all over the world.

     But, in my original thought there were some defects because of my lack of   experience and knowledge at that time.  I and our research staffs, in those days, took plenty of time to study the breeding system itself, how to breed monkeys.  But I must confess that we did not give enough considerations to the rearing system of infant monkeys.  Breeding system should have an organic connection with a rearing system.   This is a matter of course.  But we were not well and truly aware of the importance of this connection 20 years ago.

     In 1960s, many theses on isolation-rearing appeared in the journals of psychology or behavioral sciences.  We were strongly interested in them, because their results seemed useful for the development of rearing system of infant monkeys.  Nevertheless, it is impossible to deny that we thought rearing was to be relatively less important than breeding, since my experience in this field had not been enough.  So, when we made the construction plan for this center, this immature thought of mine partly resulted in  inconvenience and narrowness of TPC's rearing building, even though there was also the limit of budget.  Now, I am deeply repenting of my lack of consideration.

     Today, however,our animal-technicians working at the rearing building are  coping with those inconvenience.  They have created many methods full of originality. The technical development and improvement in this field are usually done on the basis of retrospective analyses.   But, some experimental methods also have recently been adopted.  The establishment of "Nursing mother system", for instance, is one of those fruits (Hanari et al.,Laboratory Animals. Vol. 36, No. 3, 1987).

     The research and development of rearing system of laboratory primates seem to  be the same as the human education.  The work looks to be monotonous, and needs much patience and time.  But, it is extremely essential and eternal like the human education, I think. 

Page-4  Breeding Topics:  Deliveries in the daytime

     At about what time does parturition occur in our cynomolgus monkey's breeding  colony?   How about the delivery in wild cynomolgus monkey populations?  There have been few reports describing the latter point.

     If we can forecast the time of delivery, what will be benefited in our breeding colony?   In spite of many efforts to raise breeding efficiency, the death of newborns still happens.  Probably some of such death cases would have resulted from difficult deliveries.  If we know the delivery time beforehand we can prepare necessary arrangements for such cases.

     According to our data, the delivery time of the wild originated cynomolgus   breeders ranges from 5:00 pm to 9:00 of the next morning.  We guess most of the  deliveries have occurred between 7:00 pm and 2:00 am judging from the state of mother monkeys and the newborns' fur conditions.  It is, of course,  after work hours of animal technicians.

     We observed the first daytime delivery in TPC at 15:30, May 13, 1980.  Twenty-two cases had been recorded as of May 26, 1987.  The moment of parturition has never been observed.  But some of them were found immediately after the parturitions.  The number of the cases found in the morning were only 5 (9:30 - 12:00).  Seventeen cases had occurred in the afternoon (12:00 - 17:00).  Out of the 22 cases 9 were brought by colony-bred breeders.  The ratio of day- time delivery was 3.91 ( 9/230) for colony-bred breeders, while the ratio for the wild-originated breeders was only 0.64% (13/2030).     The relatively high ratio of colony-bred breeders seems to have some rela tions with their better adaptation TPC's environmental conditions.

Page  5  Serotypes of Campylobacter jejuni isolated from the cynomolgus monkeys at TPC

     The types  f Campylobacter jejuni isolated from feces of monkeys at TPC were  identified.  Serological identification of isolated strains was carried out in Tokyo Metropolitan Research Laboratory of Public Health which developed the method of campylobacter identification (Saito et al., Japanese Journal of Bacteriology, 42, 2, 1987).

     Seventy-seven percent of the isolated strains were identified as the sero types found in human diarrhea.  This result is significant from the view point of biohazard.  Remaining 23% (37 isolates) could not be identified.  This fact suggests that some serotyps specific to nonhuman primates may exist.

     The results obtained are shown in the Table.   

Page-7 Japan-U.S. joint symposium on "Nonhuman Primates in Immunological Research"

     On March 25 in 1987, a symposium titled "Nonhuman Primates in Immunological   Research" was held at Eizai Hall in Tokyo under the auspices of the Japanese Committee of the U.S.-Japan Nonenergy Science Research and Development Cooperative Program, Laboratory Animal Science (Nonhuman Primates). 

     The lectures listed below were presented.  Through these sessions the   problems and usefulness of nonhuman primates were discussed.

  [Liat of sessions]

      *    Age-related change of immunoglobulin levels  in  cynomolgus,  African

        green and  squirrel monkeys:   Dr.  Koji Fujimoto and Dr.  Keiji  Terao

        (Tsukuba rimate Center, NIH)

      *   Leucocyte antigens in macaque monkeys: Dr. Atsuo Noguchi (Basic Medial

        Science, University of Tsukuba)

      *   Killer  cell activities in retrovirus infected cynomolgus and  African

        green monkeys: Dr. Naoko Yoshimura and Dr. Masanori Hayami (Institute of

        Medical Science, University of Tokyo)

      *   Paramyxso virus induced experimental encepharitis in cynomolgus monkeys:

        Dr. Yasuhiro Yoshikawa  (Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo)

      *   Nonhuman primate models for human immuno-related diseases: Dr. Edward

A.    Clark (Department of Microbiology & Immunology, Regional Primate Reseach Center, University of Washington)

Page- 8   Case Report: Spontaneouly occurring deformities of the spinal and sternal skeletons in squirrel monkeys

     Deformities of the sternal skeleton, in particular, funnel breast, have increased in  Japanese children.  As the causes of those disorders have been still unknown, the development of animal models is basically needed.

Case 1: A male squirrel monkeys, weighing 125g.  The animal died 26 days after   birth.   Deformity like funnel breast was found on 16th day from his birth.  The body of sternum was most deeply depressed backward at the point of incisura costalis IV and VII.  Though no abnormal finding was found in any of the vertebral bones, the processus xiphoideus was deformed sideward.

Case 2:  A male, weighing 160g.  He died 65 days after birth.  Deformity of funnel  shape and curvature of vertebrae was found in his breast on the 19th  day after birth.  The body of sternum bent back from the incisura costalis IV,  showing the deepest curve at the point of incisura costalis VII.  Although no deformity was found in the proc.  xiphoideus, the vertebrae thoracicae were bent right side making a costal upheaval.

      Hereditary factors and acquired traumas have been considered as the causes   of human cases.  In our cases, however, abnormal development of sternal skeleton can be thought to be the main cause.   The deformation of proc. xiphoideus may suggest that diaphragma,  centrum tendineum and muscles have something to do with this disorder.

Page -9  A Comment of My Research: An Ethological Survey of the Monkeys at  TPC

1. Observing the behavior

     Ethology is based on observing behaviors of human and animal subjects.  The purpose of behavioral study is to understand an environmental situation in which the  subjects are placed and an psychological state of the subject by using a certain behavior as a measure.  H.F. Harlow, for example, tried to measure "mother love" by observing to which mother an infant clung longer, a cloth mother or a wire mother.

    An ethologist has to start his research from thoroughly describing behaviors of an animal subject.  Then as the results, the items ncessary for describing  he behaviors (a behavior enventry or an ethogram) gradually appear in him.   In my present research, for example, 70 to 90 items of behavior were used.   In the next step, an observation period, i.e. 15 or 20 minutes as one trial, is fixed.   The behavioral items are recorded on chart sheets every 5, 10, or 15 seconds.  The behavioral outline of the animal subject can be seen  when the data are accumulated for 5 or 6 hours.

2. Effects of a nurse female in a cynomolgus infant group after weaning

     Usually at TPC, four infants are grouped after weaning.  Infants are highly   stressed in weaning because they are separated from their mothers, grouped with strange infants, and tattooed on face.  We can understand their stressful situations, from their fear expression and a distressful voice as well as a high level of serum cortisol. The weanlings often suffer from diarrhea or emaciation and reptal prolapse under such situations.  Some animal technicians of TPC proposed the idea that they put a female nurse monkey in the weanling group.   That method had dramatic effects in reducing the diarrheal incidence  (Hanari et al, 1987 ).

     How is that method evaluated from an ethological viewpoint?   There was no significant difference between with-a-nurse groups and without-a-nurse groups, regarding the number of groups in which some of weanlings were unable to adapt to social life in a cage.   The most important factor for such adaptation must be the development of social network through plays or agonistic interactions. In fact the nurse sometimes deprived weanlings of interacting each other during the first month after weaning (Fig.1).   This result does not mean to contradict the result obtained by Hanari et al..  Anyhow,  it will be more  productive for breeding of monkeys to make use of ethological  viewpoints.  I thought that a multivariate analysis (MVA) of this result might become a bridge between an ethological study and a research in breeding of monkeys.

3. Applying MVA to ethological data

    I tried to examines the behavioral features of a nurse in a group with maladjusted weanlings.

    Ten behavioral variances are adopted here: (1) propensity for interacting with one special weanling,  (2) locomotion,  (3)loneliness, (4)reaction to the human observer,  (5)auto-grooming,  (6)social grooming,  (7)aggression towards weanlings,  (8)fear  by weanlings,  (9)cling by  weanlings,  (10)contact  with  weanlings.

    Three groups,  that is,  a group showing normal growth in all weanlings (A-  group),  a group consisting of maladjusted weanlings during nursing period (B- group)  and a group of maladjusted weanlings after nursing period (C-group), were charted on the two dimensions of the first and second canonical variances (Z1 and Z2) (Fig.2).   B-group deviated from the other groups on the dimension of Z1,  indicating that the nurse of B-group was neither active nor aggressive but very sensitive to human.   In other words, an active or aggressive female was normal for nursing weanlings. The three groups were not discriminated each other on the dimension of Z2.   Analysis of the data involving diarrheal incidence in the weanlings are under way.

Page -12  The University of Texas System Cancer Center

     This March, I visited the University of Texas System Cancer Center (UTSCC),   Bastrop, Texas, in order to observe the aspects of chimpanzee breeding.  Its   Veterinary Resources Division (VRD) has about ninety staffs deeling with breeding of  various species of laboratory animals such as cattle, horses, goats, sheep, swine, cats, rabbits, hamsters, rats and mice, as well as nonhuman primates.  These animals are supplied to the research institutes under UTSCC's control. 

     In the wide area of VRD (374 ha), breeding facilities are scattered and lodging coaches for visiting trainees are also provided.  The species and the number of the nonhuman primates being kept at VRD are rhesus monkeys (320), cynomolgus  monkeys (50), baboons (30) and chimpanzees (120).  The species except the chimpanzee are being reared in indoor gang cages.

     Facilities for the chimpanzees consist of a building of ten inddor-outdoor units  and eight compounds joined to the central service building (office, clinics, kitchen,  nurseries , storeroom and a reparing room )(B, D in photo) and five quarantine buildings of two indoor-outdoor units (A in photo).   Each  building  has an electric heater,  being supplied fresh air without air conditioning.

     For the past eight years, 90 chimpanzees have been introduced for breeding,  and   59  offsprings have been obtained.   Whole works carried out there are based on the National Chimpanzee Breeding Program.

Page-13  A report on capturing monkeys in Indonesia

     I had a chance to see an operation of capturing wild monkeys when I visited  Indonesia last year.

     The operation I saw was done in a vast sugar cane plantation near Kotabumi   located about 120 km north of Panjang, Lampung.    There, around plantations,  jungles are left as water resources and a habitat for various wild lives.   To  capture monkeys has a meaning of the prevention against damages by monkeys as agricultual pests.

     Baduy people who are engaged in capturing monkeys perform a special ceremony which no one except the Baduy is permitted to see.   After that, they enclose low bushes of 15 meter in diameter with a fishing net.  I cuold not see any figure of monkey,  though they said monkeys were surely in the enclosure.    After chasing around, some of them caught a male pig-taild monkey.  They tied  monkey's  hands and feet with tree vines and put the monkey on the ground, covering it with leaves.    Female monkey and juvenile monkeys were caught one after another.   The total number of captured monkeys was seven.   Maybe  they were the member of the same family.   After the canine teeth of the male monkey were cut with a cutting pliers the monkeys were put in  a cage for  transportation.  That was all of the capturing work I saw on the day. 

Page-14  Overseas Topics (1) On cannibalism in squirrel monkeys

     Canibalism is sometimes observed in our squirrel monkey colony (See, TPC  NEWS Vol.5 No. 1, 1986 and Vol.6, No.1, 1987).

     A breif report, "Abortion and cannibalism in squirrel monkeys associated  with  experimental protein deficiency during gestation" (by Dr. S L. Manocha Laboratory Animal Science, August, 1976) tells that the canibalism in squirrel   monkeys is ascribed to "protein hunger".

Page -15  Overseas Topics (2):  Two human rights

    It is said that studies requiring animal experiments are in a critical situation in  England.  There is a report telling an aspect of the struggle between human rights  and animal rights, titled  "Sacred cows and unequal rights" by Mr. Ted Nield ( New Scientist,  16 October,  1986).  The summary of  the report is as follows:

    "The question as to which is more important human rights or animal rights,   reverberates everywhere in England, and generates various interesting paradox.   Yet  no paradox is more illuminating than that which emerges from a comparison between attitudes towards ritual slaughter and scientific experiments.

     In July 1985, the Farm Animal's Welfare Council recommended to the Ministry   of Agriculture that the rule under which all animals are stunned before slaughter be extended to hitherto-exempted religious slaughter houses.   The Ministry asked the leaders of concerned groups for their reaction.  The reply from the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BDBJ) was as follows: to insist on stunning would constitute an erosion of religious tolerance and an  infringe ment of the basic right to practice religion freely.

     According to Jewish low,  animals killed for consumption must be in perfect   health.  Therefore, a shee stunned is no longer acceptable for shehita,  Jewish ritual slaughter.  The BDBJ admitted that there was a conflict between animal and human rights.  But it expressed definitely its thought that the human right to free religious practice clearly outweight the right of any animal to anything.

     What is interesting here is the contrast between the power of the "human rights" case, applied ritual slaughter and the relatively ineffectual reasoning which the scientific community uses to justify vivisection and other scientific pursuits involving animals.  For  example, the campaign for "violence-free science" by antivivisectionists resulted in a new  policy of dissection in schools that pupils should be offered the choice --- to cut or  not  to cut, in spite of the British Examining Board's announcement that the dissection is an essential part of the training of biologist.  The pursuit of understanding is possibly one of the only things that separates us from the animals, might also be a basic human right.

     The BDBJ and others are awaiting the verdict of the Ministry of Agriculture.   But they are not likely to be disappointed.   Religious belief is personal and religions remain immune from such questions as "How necessary is this?" or "What is the purpose of that?".  Science, more than ever these days, has to explain its methods, its expense,  its very existence.  To profess religion becomes a right.  To be a pilgrim for science comes to look more and more like self-indulgence.

     If the government decide not to impose stunning on religious  abattoirs, some  will call it a triumph of human rights, others will call it speciesism.  But the fact  remains that the right to do humane things for didactic or experimental reasons will continue to be unproven."

     Two human basic rights, the right to pursue understanding and the right to   practise religion freely.   Which right should come first?  The verdict of the   government are expecting.

IPage-16  On the Techniques of Care and Management of Cynomolgus Monkeys:  

         Dietary intake of cynomolgus monkeys at TPC

     Every morning, the baskets full of sliced apples and oranges are brought into  animal rooms after cleaning and disinfection of sanitary trays of monkey cages.  Looking at the baskets, monkeys shout with joy.

     The feeding schedule and amounts per adult cynomolgus monkey at TPC are as  follows: 

       11:00 - 11:30  ( sliced apple and orange, 100 g, respectively ),

       13:30          ( monkey diet, 35 g ),

       16:00          ( monkey diet, 35 g ). 

     Since the fruit in the baskets have to be equally supplied to each monkey animal  care-takers newly employed must train themselves to measure an amount of sliced fruits by their eyes.

     By the way, how much amount of diet is taken per day by an adult healthy  cynomolgus monkey?  And, how about feces and urine excreted?  Our data (average values) obtained from 61 male and 192 female wild-originated cynomolgus monkeys  are presented below.

             monkey diet   apple   orange    water     feces    urine  

  A male       46 g         96 g    87 g      311 ml    19 g     134 ml

  A female     31 g         95 g    87 g      162 ml    13 g     89 ml.op

Page -16  A Memory of a Trainee:  What I have learned from TPC

     A  trainee who came from a research institute of a pharmaceutical company   has described his experience and impression during his stay at TPC.  He tells in  particular, that he learned the importance of teamwark in addition to various techniques required in animal rooms.   This lesson is very usefull for his future.

Page-17  Sketches from Animal Rooms:

       (1) Pregnancy diagnosis by an ultrasonic device in squirrel monkeys

     An  animal technician briefly reports the pregnancy diagnosis by and ultrasonic device in squirrel monkeys.

     Diagnosis of pregnancy and measurement of the size and form of fetuses were  done without anesthesia by the use of the device made by Aroka Ltd.   Pregnancy was judged on the basis of the detection of gestational sac (GS) and of fetal heart beat.   The increase in size of the uterus was also examined.  After the middle of gestation period,  the fatal biparietal diameter (BPD) was  measured as an indicator of the growth of fetuses. 

     The  GS was first detected around 127 days before delivery, and the heart beat  was confirmed 13 days after the detection of GS.   The uterus and GS rapidly  grew in the early gestational period.   But BPD was first  measurable 105 days before delivery, then the value of BPD continued to increase until 30 days before delivery.

     The ultrasonic device is a useful means for the diagnosis of pregnancy and the observation of fatal growth in the squirrel monkey.

Page-17    (2)  Dear squirrel monkeys  I met in Amami Island....

     This is a letter from an animal technician who visited Amami Islands this spring.   He wrote his impression and thought he got when he first saw the squirrel monkeys in the colony of the research institute in Amami, expressing his affection toward them.