Questions arising from ZooJam

During our discussions at ZooJam, some key questions relating to environmental enrichment emerged.   These are summarised below and opened up for feedback and contributions in the discussion section. 

 

Discussion point: Enrichment v. habitat design As soon as we started to discuss ways of enriching the environment for penguins and sea lions, the discussion turned to overall enclosure design, the implication being that some zoo enclosures might benefit from a total make-over.  We all understand that this might not be feasible because of financial or spacial constraints, but it was fun to imagine what could be possible.  The important take-home message here was that sometimes enrichment can be an "add-on" attempt to improve an impoverished environment, whereas consideration of the overall design of a captive animal's habitat should offer an experience that approaches that of their wild counterpart, thereby reducing the need for human interventions. 

Discussion point: Opportunities not events One of the key benefits of good habitat design could be that it provides opportunities for animals to make more choices about their activities, rather than living with the scheduled events that are typical of animal husbandry practices in a managed environment.  For example, several teams thought of ways to deliver food to sea lions using streams of flowing water that required the sea lions to chase after it.  Monitoring the time that the sea lions spent swimming against a current could be linked to delivery of fish into the water-flow, ensuring that they worked for their food as they must in the wild.  This would mean that there would be no set feeding times (events) but that sea lions always had an opportunity to feed if they swam far enough.

Discussion point: How to manage public expectations The provision of choice to zoo-housed animals raised another issue - namely, how to offer visitors a rewarding experience if there was no fixed plan of events during the day.  Currently, most zoos advertise set feeding times for certain species, allowing their visitors to plan the day around these interesting events.  There was a general consensus that if the public understood how freedom to choose had a positive impact on an animal's welfare, they would gladly accept the changes.  Indeed, such changes might make a visit to the zoo more exciting:  for example, there could be a live display updating the distance that the sea lions had swum, effectively acting as a count-down to the fish release time - keeping the public in the loop.  

Discussion point: Carnivores – gorging until satiated Best welfare practices for carnivores came under scrutiny as we contemplated various enrichment designs.  It was suggested that stereotypic behaviour was linked to common "drip-feeding" practices, whereby the animal is offered a regular portion of food that sustains it, but does not satiate it.  Observations of some wild species indicate that they gorge themselves when they have an opportunity, and then rest for long periods.  There was a strong argument made that zoo-housed animals should be also be allowed to do this.

Discussion point: Is training enriching?      With such a diverse set of participants, who had skills and expertise in different fields, there were occasionally semantic disagreements.   One topic that caused confusion was the meaning of the word "training", which has strong associations for many people.  Animal behaviourists would argue that training is a way to enlighten and reward an animal, by giving it access to a form of communication with its human keepers - training implies a shared understanding of needs and wishes.  Some participants had a different perspective on this, seeing training as a forced behaviour which would never happen naturally in the wild.  In particular, this raised questions around the issue of whether to quickly teach animals how to use a novel system so they can gain the associated benefits, or to allow them to discover it for themselves.