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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 on the Zoo’s website!
Jessica Sheftel, an Animal Welfare Specialist at the San Diego Zoo does assessments of animal welfare, consults with keepers on enrichment and enclosure design, and works with volunteers who make different forms of enrichment. Welfare refers to each animal’s opportunity to thrive. These opportunities include a well-balanced diet, self-maintenance, optimal health, expressing natural behaviors, and choice and control. You may be wondering what “choice and control” is? Choice and control enables each animal to have the option to do something, by choosing and controlling whether they participate or interact. Compared to object-based enrichment, which involves objects given to an animal, behavior based enrichment promotes and fosters natural behaviors.
Ms. Sheftel says that enrichment will be given in experiences that develop natural behaviors to support growth. These opportunities have been introduced in many ways so far, one being when the reindeers, who live right next to the polar bears, were temporarily moved to the polar bear exhibit to interact with the man-made snow. After the reindeers were moved back to their exhibit, the polar bears were intrigued by their scent left throughout the exhibit. While this experience was enriching for the reindeer, it was also incredibly beneficial to the polar bears. This type of experience-based enrichment allowed both the reindeer and polar bears to exhibit natural behaviors. These experiences will benefit many animals alike, as well as allow a multitude of behaviors to build upon each other.
Behaviors witnessed in the wild are able to provide Ms. Sheftel specific parameters of common behaviors for each animal at the Zoo. When creating forms of enrichment, Ms. Sheftel consults the natural history of an animal to understand their behaviors. Even more so, she can also understand the specific animals at the Zoo by witnessing their behavior. For example, one zebra at the Zoo was seen chasing another around the exhibit. Ms. Sheftel was unsure if they were actually playing or fighting, but after her team implemented a surveillance camera they noticed that the zebra chased by another zebra was not in distress. This supported Ms. Sheftel by aiding in the improvement of zebra enrichment, as this process does for many other species.
When guests roam around the Zoo, they are able to view animals in their enclosures most often interacting with forms of enrichment. Enrichment provides animals with the opportunity to display their natural behaviors. By seeing animals exhibit their natural behaviors, guests have a better understanding of how that animal would behave in the wild, which in turn, allows guests to have a better understanding of the species they are observing. It is the Zoo’s hope that this understanding will foster a connection, and with this connection, guests will feel a greater urgency to protect these animals in the wild. By keeping the animals at the Zoo engaged and healthy, Ms. Sheftel is contributing to the conservation efforts of the Zoo through stimulating the lives of animals.
The work performed by Ms. Sheftel improves not just the daily lives of the animals at the Zoo but their future as well. Her work provides Zoo guests the opportunity of witnessing healthy animals that continue to receive the welfare and enrichment they need to thrive in a managed care setting. Thanks to Ms. Sheftel, any Zoo guest can watch an intrigued lion look for food around its exhibit, an orangutan play with a burlap sack, or even a mountain coati look for a stainless-steel ball.
McKinna, Conservation Team
Week Five, Fall Session 2018
Jessica Sheftel, an Animal Welfare Specialist at the San Diego Zoo does assessments of animal welfare, consults with keepers on enrichment and enclosure design, and works with volunteers who make different forms of enrichment. Welfare refers to each animal’s opportunity to thrive. These opportunities include a well-balanced diet, self-maintenance, optimal health, expressing natural behaviors, and choice and control. You may be wondering what “choice and control” is? Choice and control enables each animal to have the option to do something, by choosing and controlling whether they participate or interact. Compared to object-based enrichment, which involves objects given to an animal, behavior based enrichment promotes and fosters natural behaviors.
Ms. Sheftel says that enrichment will be given in experiences that develop natural behaviors to support growth. These opportunities have been introduced in many ways so far, one being when the reindeers, who live right next to the polar bears, were temporarily moved to the polar bear exhibit to interact with the man-made snow. After the reindeers were moved back to their exhibit, the polar bears were intrigued by their scent left throughout the exhibit. While this experience was enriching for the reindeer, it was also incredibly beneficial to the polar bears. This type of experience-based enrichment allowed both the reindeer and polar bears to exhibit natural behaviors. These experiences will benefit many animals alike, as well as allow a multitude of behaviors to build upon each other.
Behaviors witnessed in the wild are able to provide Ms. Sheftel specific parameters of common behaviors for each animal at the Zoo. When creating forms of enrichment, Ms. Sheftel consults the natural history of an animal to understand their behaviors. Even more so, she can also understand the specific animals at the Zoo by witnessing their behavior. For example, one zebra at the Zoo was seen chasing another around the exhibit. Ms. Sheftel was unsure if they were actually playing or fighting, but after her team implemented a surveillance camera they noticed that the zebra chased by another zebra was not in distress. This supported Ms. Sheftel by aiding in the improvement of zebra enrichment, as this process does for many other species.
When guests roam around the Zoo, they are able to view animals in their enclosures most often interacting with forms of enrichment. Enrichment provides animals with the opportunity to display their natural behaviors. By seeing animals exhibit their natural behaviors, guests have a better understanding of how that animal would behave in the wild, which in turn, allows guests to have a better understanding of the species they are observing. It is the Zoo’s hope that this understanding will foster a connection, and with this connection, guests will feel a greater urgency to protect these animals in the wild. By keeping the animals at the Zoo engaged and healthy, Ms. Sheftel is contributing to the conservation efforts of the Zoo through stimulating the lives of animals.
The work performed by Ms. Sheftel improves not just the daily lives of the animals at the Zoo but their future as well. Her work provides Zoo guests the opportunity of witnessing healthy animals that continue to receive the welfare and enrichment they need to thrive in a managed care setting. Thanks to Ms. Sheftel, any Zoo guest can watch an intrigued lion look for food around its exhibit, an orangutan play with a burlap sack, or even a mountain coati look for a stainless-steel ball.
McKinna, Conservation Team
Week Five, Fall Session 2018
