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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 adventure here on the Zoo’s website!
This week interns had the extraordinary opportunity to meet and talk with Nicki Boyd, the Behavioral Husbandry Manager at the San Diego Zoo. Ms. Boyd works with and trains almost all of the animals at the Zoo, outfitting them to perform certain essential tasks for their everyday lives. Sharing an afternoon with Ms. Boyd was awe-inspiring and an extremely illuminating experience.
Originally a keeper at the Children’s Zoo, Ms. Boyd has always had an interest in making her animals lives less stressful. Back in the old days, to perform certain procedures like blood draws and checking the animal for injuries, the Zoo would have to corral the animal in a way that could cause unnecessary stress to the animal. Ms. Boyd hated how the keeper-animal relationship would be severely hurt doing these procedures, so she vowed that she would find a better way. With a background as a veterinary technician and experience working with exotic animals, Ms. Boyd had the ideal skill set to train the animals for certain behaviors to make scenarios like blood draws much less stressful. Through trial and error, persistence, and a will to keep going forward, Ms. Boyd had finally developed some of the San Diego Zoo’s first animal husbandry training practices. Prior to Ms. Boyd, the Zoo did not have established husbandry behavior training, but with Ms. Boyd leading the charge, the San Diego Zoo was on the path to a future that would bolster keeper-animal relationships, improve animal welfare, and make the animal’s lives even more stimulating.
The whole goal of behavioral husbandry is to increase safety with keepers, reduce stress, practice proactive medical care, provide exercise and enrichment, and to ultimately better the animal’s welfare. Branching out from the Zoo, training animals has risen to a worldwide affair. Using small increments, Ms. Boyd and others slowly train an animal to perform a certain behavior in order to make medical care or check-ups easier and less stressful. For example, when training a tiger at the Zoo for a blood draw, Ms. Boyd needed to get the animal to back up to the edge of their crate, thus allowing the blood to be drawn from their tail. Seems difficult right? Well looking at the big picture it may seem hard, but by taking baby steps, Ms. Boyd was able to get the animal to back all the way up, allowing for a successful blood draw. To do this, she took pieces of meat and put them slightly behind the tiger. While doing this, she gave the tiger a visual and verbal cue for “back”. Instead of getting up and turning around for the meat, the tiger simple scooched back a little. When the animal did this, Ms. Boyd rewarded her with more meat and sounded a clicker. The clicker is used as a bridge, letting the animal know it performed the behavior correctly. After repeating this several times over the course of many weeks, Ms. Boyd only used the visual and verbal keys for “back”, hoping the tiger understood. After a moment that felt like a lifetime, the tiger went back a couple of inches. Relieved and excited, Ms. Boyd made sure to give the eager cat lots of meat, “It was like a light bulb went off,” she remembers, “She finally understood what I wanted her to do.” Most training for animals at the Zoo, large or small, takes nearly six months! Ms. Boyd is always hard at work, training the vast majority of the animals at the Zoo!
Not every animal at the Zoo is rewarded with meat or some other food reinforcement. Many of the social animals are rewarded with keeper attention and scrubs. For example, the greater one-horned rhino at the San Diego Zoo loves to be scratched around his chin and belly, but don’t be fooled, he also loves the occasional apple. “The animals get all of their food, regardless if they complete the training session,” Ms. Boyd told us. Just because the animal did not successfully finish the session, the Zoo never restricts food from them. And not every animal is trainable! When working with the golden-bellied mangabeys, Ms. Boyd had trouble training the subordinates. “The dominant monkeys were stealing all of the food,” Ms Boyd explained. However after months of tireless attempts at training, in the end, the animals, needing to be moved to a new enclosure, were transferred by just opening a large gate to their new habitat. Not every endeavor ends successfully, but you can always learn something from a tough situation.
At the very end of our day, Ms. Boyd showed us a real time training session with the Zoo’s fennec fox. A naturally shy animal, Ms. Boyd went through some basic behaviors such as going to a certain place in the enclosure, touching her hand, and digging. Hoping to be a potential animal ambassador, the fennec fox has had some bumps in the road due to medical setbacks, but Ms. Boyd has hopes he will blossom in the future. Ms. Boyd’s training has been monumental for animals and keepers at the Zoo, and has changed the lives of many species. So the next time you visit the Zoo, now you know all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes.
Patrick, Careers Team
Week Five, Winter Session 2016
This week interns had the extraordinary opportunity to meet and talk with Nicki Boyd, the Behavioral Husbandry Manager at the San Diego Zoo. Ms. Boyd works with and trains almost all of the animals at the Zoo, outfitting them to perform certain essential tasks for their everyday lives. Sharing an afternoon with Ms. Boyd was awe-inspiring and an extremely illuminating experience.
Originally a keeper at the Children’s Zoo, Ms. Boyd has always had an interest in making her animals lives less stressful. Back in the old days, to perform certain procedures like blood draws and checking the animal for injuries, the Zoo would have to corral the animal in a way that could cause unnecessary stress to the animal. Ms. Boyd hated how the keeper-animal relationship would be severely hurt doing these procedures, so she vowed that she would find a better way. With a background as a veterinary technician and experience working with exotic animals, Ms. Boyd had the ideal skill set to train the animals for certain behaviors to make scenarios like blood draws much less stressful. Through trial and error, persistence, and a will to keep going forward, Ms. Boyd had finally developed some of the San Diego Zoo’s first animal husbandry training practices. Prior to Ms. Boyd, the Zoo did not have established husbandry behavior training, but with Ms. Boyd leading the charge, the San Diego Zoo was on the path to a future that would bolster keeper-animal relationships, improve animal welfare, and make the animal’s lives even more stimulating.
The whole goal of behavioral husbandry is to increase safety with keepers, reduce stress, practice proactive medical care, provide exercise and enrichment, and to ultimately better the animal’s welfare. Branching out from the Zoo, training animals has risen to a worldwide affair. Using small increments, Ms. Boyd and others slowly train an animal to perform a certain behavior in order to make medical care or check-ups easier and less stressful. For example, when training a tiger at the Zoo for a blood draw, Ms. Boyd needed to get the animal to back up to the edge of their crate, thus allowing the blood to be drawn from their tail. Seems difficult right? Well looking at the big picture it may seem hard, but by taking baby steps, Ms. Boyd was able to get the animal to back all the way up, allowing for a successful blood draw. To do this, she took pieces of meat and put them slightly behind the tiger. While doing this, she gave the tiger a visual and verbal cue for “back”. Instead of getting up and turning around for the meat, the tiger simple scooched back a little. When the animal did this, Ms. Boyd rewarded her with more meat and sounded a clicker. The clicker is used as a bridge, letting the animal know it performed the behavior correctly. After repeating this several times over the course of many weeks, Ms. Boyd only used the visual and verbal keys for “back”, hoping the tiger understood. After a moment that felt like a lifetime, the tiger went back a couple of inches. Relieved and excited, Ms. Boyd made sure to give the eager cat lots of meat, “It was like a light bulb went off,” she remembers, “She finally understood what I wanted her to do.” Most training for animals at the Zoo, large or small, takes nearly six months! Ms. Boyd is always hard at work, training the vast majority of the animals at the Zoo!
Not every animal at the Zoo is rewarded with meat or some other food reinforcement. Many of the social animals are rewarded with keeper attention and scrubs. For example, the greater one-horned rhino at the San Diego Zoo loves to be scratched around his chin and belly, but don’t be fooled, he also loves the occasional apple. “The animals get all of their food, regardless if they complete the training session,” Ms. Boyd told us. Just because the animal did not successfully finish the session, the Zoo never restricts food from them. And not every animal is trainable! When working with the golden-bellied mangabeys, Ms. Boyd had trouble training the subordinates. “The dominant monkeys were stealing all of the food,” Ms Boyd explained. However after months of tireless attempts at training, in the end, the animals, needing to be moved to a new enclosure, were transferred by just opening a large gate to their new habitat. Not every endeavor ends successfully, but you can always learn something from a tough situation.
At the very end of our day, Ms. Boyd showed us a real time training session with the Zoo’s fennec fox. A naturally shy animal, Ms. Boyd went through some basic behaviors such as going to a certain place in the enclosure, touching her hand, and digging. Hoping to be a potential animal ambassador, the fennec fox has had some bumps in the road due to medical setbacks, but Ms. Boyd has hopes he will blossom in the future. Ms. Boyd’s training has been monumental for animals and keepers at the Zoo, and has changed the lives of many species. So the next time you visit the Zoo, now you know all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes.
Patrick, Careers Team
Week Five, Winter Session 2016
