Enrichment from InteractionsĮnrichment from interactions can come from interactions with the same species – we house our gorillas in family groups, just like the ones they would have in the wild. Habitat enrichment can be as simple as providing an animal a choice of shade or sun to nap in and as involved as providing safe places for the animals to dig or make nests. Both the polar bear and brown bear habitats have dig pits, dead trees to play with, pools, smell ports, and grassy areas that give the bears the opportunities to be bears – to dig, scratch, smell, and swim. Our new Polar Frontier epitomizes the way we design our animals’ homes as places for enrichment and play. These experiences are designed to both stimulate an animal’s natural behavior and to give them something new to do. Our keepers will also create new experiences for our animals, such as giving the wolves bison hair to roll in. At the Zoo, we’ll give our animals appropriate toys to play with too, like a floating pool toy for our brown bears or a big plastic ball for our elephants to kick around. If you have a dog at home, it probably has a lot of toys like rubber balls and hard plastic chew bones. Keepers also will hide food in an enclosure or seal it up in a container, encouraging the natural foraging behaviors of certain animals. Freezing food inside ice blocks not only makes the animals have to problem-solve to get their food, it helps to keep them cool on hot summer days. #Columbus zoo polar bear crackedOr maybe our keepers will give them foods that have to be peeled or cracked open. This might mean giving an animal a new food that they’ve never seen before. At the Zoo, our keepers will use food in different ways to stimulate these natural behaviors. In the wild, animals spend a large part of the time hunting or foraging for food. Enrichment also allows our animals to make choices and have some control over their world – which is the key to ensuring happy animals. From our Aldabra tortoises to our gorillas, each animal is given a variety of foods, activities, toys, and experiences to keep them busy. Enrichment also gives our animals new experiences and engages them in new games, giving our animals both mental and physical exercise. A vital part of animal care, enrichment is what our keepers provide our animals to encourage species-specific behavior (like rolling in scents for wolves).
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