2022 AZAALAS Webinar: Encouraging Natural Behaviors in Zoo Animals Through Environmental Enrichment
2022 AZAALAS Webinar - May 19th: 2:30-3:30p.m.
Stephanie Norton
Animal Welfare Specialist
Reid Park Zoo - Tucson
Encouraging Natural Behaviors in Zoo Animals through Environmental Enrichment
Excellence and innovation are hallmarks of the care that the animals at the Reid Park Zoo receive every day from the Zoo’s Animal Care Staff. Whether it’s training a rhinoceros to allow a staff member to draw blood for the animal’s health and veterinary care, inventing a life-saving technique to treat a congenital kidney problem in an African lion, or hundreds of things staff members do to enhance the animals’ lives, the Zoo and its staff are guided by deep care, excellence, and innovation.
A good example of excellence and innovation in the animals’ care is what is called “enrichment.” Enrichment refers to objects or activities that bring out an animal’s natural behaviors and cognitive engagement – often, the animal’s puzzle-solving skills. Just like in people, cognitive engagement and physical activity are important for keeping the Zoo’s animals mentally and physically robust. Zoo animals can’t join book clubs, play video games, or do crossword puzzles, but they can be stimulated to explore. For instance, novel scents dotted about in a habitat are very stimulating for an animal whose species naturally depends on an acute sense of smell. Objects that an animal can safely bat around or pounce on or pry open to get a treat are favorite examples of enrichment. Enrichment can even be as straightforward as rearranging permanent structures in an animal’s habitat. These kinds of things stimulate the animals’ senses and brains, and they engage the animals’ natural behaviors. Enrichment is so important to the health of the animals that the Reid Park Zoo has a staff member whose whole job is to oversee animal enrichment for the Zoo’s animals – a sort of Animal Enrichment Czar! (The real title is Animal Welfare Specialist.)
Reid Park Zoo recently unveiled an exciting new invention for animal enrichment! You can look for it the next time you visit the Zoo. This new device is the fruit of a new collaboration between the Zoo’s “Animal Enrichment Czar” and a team of engineering students at the University of Arizona. Reid Park Zoo and the UA already have long-standing, productive collaborations in Animal Science and more recently in veterinary medicine, and this collaboration with Engineering adds a whole new dimension to those.
The new enrichment device is getting its first use with Bella, Reid Park Zoo’s jaguar. If you haven’t seen Bella yet, her name suits her perfectly – she is absolutely beautiful! Bella already receives many types of enrichment. She has tree trunks to climb on, a pool of water to plunge into, and she is periodically given an oxtail dangling from a tree trunk high above the ground. For the oxtail, Bella needs to use her sharp vision to spot the treat and then has to figure out whether to use her impressive jumping skill or her climbing skill as the best way to get at the treat.
Join us for the live webcast - Password: UACSeminars
Want to support their enrichment program? There is always a need for new enrichment items for the animals and their wish list exists year round: https://reidparkzoo.org/get-involved/ways-to-give/enrichment-tree/
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Arizona AALAS members, whatever their interest in lab animal science have the opportunity for professional growth through involvement in national and local meetings, participation in certification training programs and access to AALAS publications and educational materials. Each branch has its own educational agenda, scientific and technical presentations, workshops, tours of facilities, local training programs and regular social activities. Visit: www.azaalas.org
AZAALAS does not discriminate against individuals or groups regarding membership and/or event attendance. However, we reserves the right to deny membership or event registration and attendance to individuals for any reason, including, but not limited to an individual’s or group’s previous history of affiliation with organizations that make or have made a practice of opposing the beliefs, mission, and/or affiliation(s) of AZAALAS and/or has a prior history of negative interaction with AALAS.
