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Zoo InternQuest is a seven-week career exploration program for San Diego County high school juniors and seniors. Students have the unique opportunity to meet professionals working for the San Diego Zoo, Safari Park, and Institute for Conservation Research, learn about their jobs, and then blog about their experience online. Follow their adventures here!
What do you think of when you hear the word enrichment? Your mind probably jumps straight to the colorful balls you saw scattered in the lion or polar bear enclosures. The good news is you’re not wrong. The toys you see in the animals enclosures are a type of enrichment, but there is a little more to the story than most people realize. Enrichment is a kind of an umbrella term that represents a collective coalition of different techniques to aide animal welfare. So yes, enrichment is the vibrant balls you see scattered in some of the enclosures, but it is also using visual stimuli, smell, sound, and designing naturalistic enclosures to draw out a species natural behaviors.
The interns learned all this and more from Jessica Sheftel, the Enrichment Supervisor for the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park. As we learned from Mrs. Sheftel the world of enrichment has drastically changed as our understanding of what animals need to thrive becomes more concrete. The Zoo’s enrichment program has only exploded since the first enclosure was built for lions in 1926. As time went on, enrichment experts explored options to better animal welfare, which in the 80’s led them to giving lions plastic toys to keep them stimulated and active. Today, at the Safari Park the lions have a natural enclosure on a bluff so they can smell the animals around them, have trees to climb and plenty of space to enjoy. Ultimately, the field of enrichment has shifted from object focused to behavioral enrichment.
The foundation of enrichment is built on bringing out appropriate animal behavior by crafting cognitive stimuli that increase intellectual focus for the animal. As a result, there is a lot of research and time that goes into developing tools that will help mimic the animal’s natural behaviors. Due to the fact that Mrs. Sheftel works with almost every animal at both the Zoo and Safari Park, she is backed by the expertise of zoo keepers, vets, and nutritionist in order to create a specialized plan to match the animal’s individual needs. The final product is a lot like a puzzle. The animal has to use its innate and cognitive skills to solve it. Whether the puzzle is as seemingly simple as putting food in paper bags to mimic the squirrel monkeys natural behavior of shredding bark to find food, or spreading out nesting material throughout the exhibit so a gorilla or grizzly bear can make its nest. Sometimes you have to be creative and think outside the box. For example, who ever thought a dog bowl product could be useful in a giraffe exhibit? Enrichment researchers have figured out that by putting a dog bowl puzzle in the giraffe’s feeders, it stimulates the giraffes to maneuver their tongues to get the food. This behavior is meant to mimic how giraffes would to get around the thorns of an acacia tree in the wild.
No matter how big or small the enrichment, it is beneficial to the animal’s well being. The goal is to give the animal what they need to elicit their natural behaviors, but it is up to the animal to solve it. It’s all about the trial and error they would experience in the wild. Think about it this way, picture one of those square baby toys that has shape on all six sides. As adults it is easy for us to know right away which shape goes in which hole, but for babies it can be quite complicated. It wasn’t until after we tried the puzzle a couple of times that we started to learn the corresponding relationships. This same thing happens when a new enrichment puzzle is given to an animal.
The interns were given a turn to put our animal knowledge to the test, by designing our own natural environment that caters to the chosen animal’s needs. During our designing process, we had to consider perching options, travel routes, water features, feeding locations, and other enrichment the animal(s) will need. My partner, Aliciá, and I chose to create a mixed species exhibit with the otter and monkey. As you can see by the picture, we created a two tier enclosure that had a downhill stream that emptied into a pool acting as both a water source and habitat for the otters. On the lower level, we included a den for the otters to rest in. In the back on the top level we placed a monkey sanctuary for the monkeys.
Enrichment is a part of just about everything at the zoo. Therefore the next time you visit take a second to look around and observe all the enrichment being implemented to benefit the animals’ well being. And don’t be afraid to ask a keeper questions about what a behavior a certain enrichment product brings out. In a way these enrichment tools aren’t just enriching the animals, they also help enrich the public’s understanding of zoo welfare.
Samantha, Real World Team
Week Four, Winter Session 2016
What do you think of when you hear the word enrichment? Your mind probably jumps straight to the colorful balls you saw scattered in the lion or polar bear enclosures. The good news is you’re not wrong. The toys you see in the animals enclosures are a type of enrichment, but there is a little more to the story than most people realize. Enrichment is a kind of an umbrella term that represents a collective coalition of different techniques to aide animal welfare. So yes, enrichment is the vibrant balls you see scattered in some of the enclosures, but it is also using visual stimuli, smell, sound, and designing naturalistic enclosures to draw out a species natural behaviors.
The interns learned all this and more from Jessica Sheftel, the Enrichment Supervisor for the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park. As we learned from Mrs. Sheftel the world of enrichment has drastically changed as our understanding of what animals need to thrive becomes more concrete. The Zoo’s enrichment program has only exploded since the first enclosure was built for lions in 1926. As time went on, enrichment experts explored options to better animal welfare, which in the 80’s led them to giving lions plastic toys to keep them stimulated and active. Today, at the Safari Park the lions have a natural enclosure on a bluff so they can smell the animals around them, have trees to climb and plenty of space to enjoy. Ultimately, the field of enrichment has shifted from object focused to behavioral enrichment.
The foundation of enrichment is built on bringing out appropriate animal behavior by crafting cognitive stimuli that increase intellectual focus for the animal. As a result, there is a lot of research and time that goes into developing tools that will help mimic the animal’s natural behaviors. Due to the fact that Mrs. Sheftel works with almost every animal at both the Zoo and Safari Park, she is backed by the expertise of zoo keepers, vets, and nutritionist in order to create a specialized plan to match the animal’s individual needs. The final product is a lot like a puzzle. The animal has to use its innate and cognitive skills to solve it. Whether the puzzle is as seemingly simple as putting food in paper bags to mimic the squirrel monkeys natural behavior of shredding bark to find food, or spreading out nesting material throughout the exhibit so a gorilla or grizzly bear can make its nest. Sometimes you have to be creative and think outside the box. For example, who ever thought a dog bowl product could be useful in a giraffe exhibit? Enrichment researchers have figured out that by putting a dog bowl puzzle in the giraffe’s feeders, it stimulates the giraffes to maneuver their tongues to get the food. This behavior is meant to mimic how giraffes would to get around the thorns of an acacia tree in the wild.
No matter how big or small the enrichment, it is beneficial to the animal’s well being. The goal is to give the animal what they need to elicit their natural behaviors, but it is up to the animal to solve it. It’s all about the trial and error they would experience in the wild. Think about it this way, picture one of those square baby toys that has shape on all six sides. As adults it is easy for us to know right away which shape goes in which hole, but for babies it can be quite complicated. It wasn’t until after we tried the puzzle a couple of times that we started to learn the corresponding relationships. This same thing happens when a new enrichment puzzle is given to an animal.
The interns were given a turn to put our animal knowledge to the test, by designing our own natural environment that caters to the chosen animal’s needs. During our designing process, we had to consider perching options, travel routes, water features, feeding locations, and other enrichment the animal(s) will need. My partner, Aliciá, and I chose to create a mixed species exhibit with the otter and monkey. As you can see by the picture, we created a two tier enclosure that had a downhill stream that emptied into a pool acting as both a water source and habitat for the otters. On the lower level, we included a den for the otters to rest in. In the back on the top level we placed a monkey sanctuary for the monkeys.
Enrichment is a part of just about everything at the zoo. Therefore the next time you visit take a second to look around and observe all the enrichment being implemented to benefit the animals’ well being. And don’t be afraid to ask a keeper questions about what a behavior a certain enrichment product brings out. In a way these enrichment tools aren’t just enriching the animals, they also help enrich the public’s understanding of zoo welfare.
Samantha, Real World Team
Week Four, Winter Session 2016
