Capuchin monkeys are among the most cognitively sophisticated New World primates, with welfare needs shaped by their remarkable tool use and social complexity.
Capuchin monkeys used as assistance animals for people with disabilities raise difficult welfare questions: the animals provide genuine value to human partners but the isolation from conspecifics, the restricted movement, and the demands of trained service roles may cause welfare harm. The cognitive complexity that makes capuchins effective helpers also means they experience their constraints more acutely. Wild capuchin populations face habitat loss that disrupts the complex social learning systems through which tool use knowledge is transmitted.