Environmental enrichment is the process of improving or enhancing the environment of zoo animals and has become a prerequisite tool with regard to the management of animals in zoos worldwide.
Environmental enrichment encompasses aspects such as enclosure architecture, the way in which food is offered to the animals, the substrate in their enclosures, furniture, and husbandry practices.
In order to be successful, environmental enrichment should ideally be guided by knowledge of an animal's natural habitat and habits. Any implementation of environmental enrichment should be evaluated against its goals. Assessing whether an animal's welfare has improved is extremely complicated and there is constant debate about the relative merits of different welfare indicators.
The Goal Orientated Enrichment Programme
The Goal Orientated Enrichment Programme is a scientific methodology adapted from Disney's Animal Kingdom programme and is has been implemented at the National Zoo.
The Zoo's Visitor Experience and Animal Enrichment Coordinator, Robynn Ingle-Möller, says the pogramme has a two-pronged approach. "It emphasises staff development and animal welfare. The two combined create a sustainable and interactive system that allows for collective development, team building and self-learning".
What are the different types of enrichment?
Sensory
Stimulates the animal's sense of smell, touch, hearing, vision, and taste.
Social
Social groupings facilitate feeding, grooming, social, territorial, and courtship behaviours.
Cognitive
Provides animals the opportunity to increase their problem-solving skills, especially for highly cognitive species such as primates.
Furniture
Habitats should provide a variety of substrates, levels, and complexities.
Food
Food presented in a variety of ways to elicit feeding, hunting, foraging, and problem-solving.
Student enrichment projects
Engineer@Zoo
Civil engineering students at the University of Pretoria are required to complete 30 to 40 hours of community service. They decided to serve their hours at the National Zoo and have been involved in a number of enrichment projects. Read their recent blog entries:
Eight over-sized ice treats were made for the African elephants at the National Zoo on 23 February 2012. Each elephant was delighted to have a novel food item on a hot summer day and spent a few hours testing, tasting and enjoying the cool tasty enrichment.
Toot, a Spotted Eagle Owl, is our National Zoo Ambassador Owl. She enjoyed playing with her new plastic toy snake immensely.
Celebrating Valentine's Day 2012 with jelly cakes
NZG Interns and Bird Section Staff handover of the Valentine Enrichment for the Wattle Crane and Vultures.
NZG Staff delivering Valentines to their birds.
NZG Vultures enjoying their Valentine's jelly cake. Everyone loved watching
the birds engage, interact and enjoy.
To participate in the National Zoo's environmental enrichment activities or find out more information, contact Robynn Ingle-Möller, the National Zoo's Visitor Experience and Animal Enrichment Coordinator and SHAPE-Africa Vice-Chairperson.
The National Zoological Gardens of
South Africa is a proud facility of
the National Research Foundation
