PhD Studentship: Fostering Resilience in Captive Great Apes

University of Birmingham - School of Biosciences

Great apes held in captivity need resilience: the ability to ‘bounce back’ following setbacks. This is particularly true for apes entering sanctuaries or rehabilitation centres, as they have usually endured traumatic conditions, including killing of their mother and separation from their social group, which can have lasting psychological effects, impairing their resilience. This in turn threatens to reduce the effectiveness of conservation programs involving rehabilitation and release of ex-captive individuals, as reduced resilience may make it less likely that apes will be able to thrive in the wild.

However, even zoo-housed apes may need to build their resilience. One of the factors contributing to low resilience is experiencing a lack of agency. This affects captive apes in all settings because they often have no choice about when to feed and forage, what to eat, or which individuals to socialise with. Routine management practices which are important for the apes’ health or their conservation may impose stressful or frustrating situations which they cannot escape or avoid (e.g., regular veterinary health checks or treatment involving capture and sedation/anaesthesia, temporary or longer-term separation from their social group during treatment and recovery). Collection management (such as species breeding programmes) may mean that individuals are moved between institutions and must integrate into a new social group. Unlike dispersal in the wild, captive apes have no control over when this occurs and which group they join.

We will build on pilot research in our group on orangutans and gorillas housed in zoos, which has identified promising avenues for progress in addressing this problem. We have integrated research on fostering resilience in humans and other non-human animal species and used it to design interventions to build their resilience. In this project we aim to develop and test these techniques on great apes, as well as investigating how management techniques can be altered to provide apes with a sense of agency. As a result we hope to develop techniques which will build resilience, improving the welfare and conservation outcomes for great apes in zoos, sanctuaries and rehabilitation centres.

For further information on this project and details of how to apply to it, please click on the 'Apply' button above.

Further information on how to apply for a CENTA studentship: https://centa.ac.uk/apply/

Funding notes:

This project is offered through the CENTA3 DLA, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Funding covers: annual stipend, tuition fees (at home-fee level), Research Training Support Grant.

Academic requirements: at least a 2:1 at UK BSc level or a pass at UK MSc level or equivalent.

International students are eligible for studentships to a maximum of 30% of the cohort provided the University of Birmingham’s international student entry requirements are fulfilled. Funding does not cover any additional costs relating to moving or residing in the UK. Further information: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/postgraduate/pgt/requirements-pgt/international/index.aspx.

References:

Bridgeland-Stephens et al 2023. Potential resilience treatments for orangutans (Pongo spp.): Lessons from a scoping review of interventions in humans and other animals. Animal Welfare 32.

Thorpe, S. et al 2024. The EDT: An evidence-based framework for improving captive great ape well-being., in: Unwin, White, Landjouw (Eds.), State of the Apes Vol V: Health and Disease at the Human-Ape Interface. ARCUS Foundation.

Chappell and Thorpe, 2022. The role of great ape behavioral ecology in One Health: implications for captive welfare and re-habilitation success. American Journal of Primatology 84.