IPS Committee on Making Capture Safer & Finding Alternatives

Direct contact with wild primates can further conservation and research goals and is sometimes needed to remove snares or for medical intervention. The safety and long-term wellbeing of primates that are captured and released back into their natural habitats are concerns for field primatologists and veterinarians. Following a round-table at IPS Chicago 2016, the International Primatological Society created a committee to continue to improve methods for the capture and release of primates and promote the use of alternatives. The membership of the committee represents expertise in capturing a wide range of taxa and the use of trapping, darting, and hand capture as well as alternatives to capture.

We aim to:

1. Build trust and increase sharing of information, including detailed reporting and data collection on the short-term, immediate and long-term consequences of capture and release of wild primates.

2. Provide a mechanism to share experience and protocols for the capture and release of wild primates and develop new protocols where they do not yet exist.

3. Promote the use of alternatives to captures. The use of alternatives can reduce the need to capture primates for reasons such as obtaining genetic material and facilitating identification.

To achieve these goals, the committee has started a private room on WildHub, an online international community of conservation professionals. The room is a place to share best practices for capture, ideas about alternatives to capture, seek help with planning captures, and discuss challenges encountered when capturing and releasing wild primates. If you would like to join the room please click here.

If you would like to talk with a member of the committee about issues concerning the capture and release of primates, please contact Tatyana (Tanya) Humle or Elena Cunningham and they will put you in contact with an appropriate member of the committee.

Current members include:

● Tatyana (Tanya) Humle (chair) (thumle@rewild.org)

● Elena Cunningham (co-chair) (ec46@nyu.edu) ● Jo Setchell (co-chair) ● Steve Unwin (co-chair)

● Caroline Asiimwe

● Marc Cattet

● Tony DiFiore

● Alina Evans

● Eduardo Fernandez-Duque

● Luis Fores

● Tony Goldberg

● Ricko Jaya

● Rebecca Lewis

● Monica Montenegro

● Anna Nekaris

● George Omondi

● Fernando Passos

● Andrea Springer

● Dominic Travis

● Trudy Turner

● Mini Watsa