Rhino Foobler 2.0

Our official study of how the rhino Foobler affects Boone's behavior is underway, thanks to the newly revamped heavy duty electronics undertaken by the TGiF team!  Thanks to Fred, for taking the video below.  We would also like to give a shout out to ANSYNC Labs for their donation of parts and expertise.  TGiF received parts and recommendations on how to make the electronics more robust to rhino-sized forces from ANSYNC during the revamp, and Boone and the rest of us are grateful!

We are doing a one week on/ one week off schedule with the Foobler so we can see how Boone's behavior during the 'on' weeks differs from the 'off' weeks.  We are also using different time intervals for the different 'on' weeks.  At the beginning of July, we put the Foobler out for one week on regular time intervals, so it went off every twenty minutes three times in the morning and at three twenty minute intervals in the afternoon.  Last week was an off week, and this week we will put the Foobler out set to go off at varying time intervals.  

Our plan is to wrap up the formal study in August so we can present our findings at the Association of Zoos and Aquariums conference in San Diego!  We're looking forward to sharing the concept with our colleagues at other zoos, so as always thank you all for contributing to this research!

Also, I know a lot of you look forward to rhino videos and pictures.  Here are some pictures of Boone playing with his food tub the other day, along with our hippo enjoying a shower we built for him recently :)