Researchers’ Ethical Concerns Regarding Habituating Wild Nonhuman Primates and Perceived Ethical Duties to Their Subjects

I explored: 1) if primatologists are concerned about potential consequences of habituation; and 2) how primatologists perceive their duties toward subjects. I collected data from 286 participants via an online survey distributed through email and the International Primatological Society’s social media. Likert-scale responses for items focused on habituation concerns and duties were analyzed via exploratory factor analyses. Results indicated that respondents were concerned about the consequences of habituation, and their duty was related to what caused a harm. Specifically, exploratory factor analysis of 11 items revealed three factors regarding ethical concern, including concerns for indirect harms of habituation (Mean = 5.03; SD = 0.89), unhabituated behavior after habituation is established (Mean = 4.98; SD = 1.08), and harms during habituation (Mean = 3.94; SD = 1.35). Habituation potentially causing subjects to be less wary of humans and, therefore, vulnerable to poaching was most frequently ranked as most important (n = 117; 44%). For seven items related to perceived duties, two factors were revealed, with a factor regarding duties to mitigate human-caused harms rated higher than naturally occurring harms (Mean = 4.95, SD = 1.09; and Mean = 2.19, SD = 1.23, respectively). The duty to not stress subjects was most frequently ranked as most important (n = 58; 23.3%). These findings can be used to develop protocols that reflect the concerns and duties of researchers