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Simple Summary: Chimp Haven, the world's largest chimpanzee sanctuary, houses over 300 chimpanzees with a variety of health needs including obesity, cardiac disease, and wounding. The veterinary and behavioral staff work together to develop individualized plans for the physical and behavioral well-being of the chimpanzees in their care. We specifically focus on the interface between the veterinarian and the behavioral program director via two example cases to illustrate our methodology. These insights depict a comprehensive understanding of the operational landscape and the strategic considerations for delivering exceptional and individualized care to chimpanzees housed in group settings. Chimp Haven is a private, nonprofit organization that serves as the largest chimpanzee sanctuary in the world. The National Institutes of Health supports the federal sanctuary system, which is operated by Chimp Haven, to provide lifetime care for chimpanzees who have retired from biomedical research. Chimp Haven is home to over 300 chimpanzees, with a wide variety of individual health needs including infectious diseases. The chimpanzees live in large, mixed-sex social groups within corrals, multi-dimensional enclosures, and naturally forested habitats, which presents challenges for monitoring and balancing individual versus group needs. Primate veterinarians and animal behavior directors have an obligation to collaborate for the best possible health and welfare outcomes for the species in their care. This manuscript details how veterinarians and behavioral staff at Chimp Haven interface to enhance clinical management and improve chimpanzee welfare using two clinical cases to illustrate this relationship. This is accomplished through the development of individual care plans that include the utilization of welfare assessment metrics and positive reinforcement training programs collaboratively developed between the veterinarians and behaviorists to facilitate voluntary medical procedures without the need for social isolation. Specifically, welfare metrics such as monitoring chimpanzee wounding levels and severity, as well as targeted assessments, involve the input of both the veterinarians and behaviorists. Positive reinforcement training initiatives such as weight loss, heart health, and wound care also require the interface between the two disciplines. The authors aim to demonstrate that working together provides optimal levels of expert care for both the physical and mental health of the chimpanzees in our care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: This manuscript details seven different types of behavioral metrics utilized at Chimp Haven to monitor the welfare of the chimpanzees. Each metric focuses on a different aspect of chimpanzee behavior and well-being. Chimp Haven monitors the chimpanzees' social behavior via wounding reports, Nearest Night Neighbor proximities, behavioral time budgets, and shifting logs. Individual chimpanzee welfare is monitored via hair loss and wellness surveys as well as targeted individual assessments for abnormal behavior and individual logs on a chimpanzee's progress in our positive reinforcement training program. The metrics provided here may provide a framework for various types of objective and simple data collection for other animal organizations. Chimp Haven is a sanctuary for chimpanzees retired from biomedical research, rescued from the pet trade, or re-homed after other organizations could no longer care for them. To provide optimal care for over 300 chimpanzees, Chimp Haven's animal care team includes experts in behavioral science, veterinary treatment, and husbandry practices. To aid these teams in making routine welfare management decisions, a system of behavioral metrics provides objective data to guide decisions and track outcomes. Chimp Haven has built and piloted seven behavioral metric protocols over the past 5 years to provide staff with an objective and comprehensive picture of the chimpanzees' behavioral welfare. The data from behavioral observations, staff surveys, and routine staff documentation are analyzed and processed through Google Forms, ZooMonitor, Microsoft Power Bi, Microsoft Excel, and R. Each metric assists staff in making data-based decisions regarding the management of captive chimpanzees related to abnormal behavior, hair loss, wounding, social relationships, positive reinforcement training and overall wellness. In this article, we explore examples of each metric and how they have been utilized to monitor and make decisions for both social groups of chimpanzees as well as individuals. These metrics can be collected and shared easily in an understandable format, which may provide an important framework for others to follow to enable the tracking of welfare for other sanctuaries, non-human primates, as well as other species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]