One of the hardest things about implementing an enrichment program is finding the resources to do so. Great enrichment programs are very material intensive and this can be daunting for facilities that do not have a lot of resources at their disposal (I think its fair to say most animal care facilities fall under this …
The Importance of Foraging time When you break down the day to day life of many species, it generally breaks down into two main pursuits, the pursuit of a mate and the pursuit of resources, which is generally food and water. The definition of foraging is to obtain food and resources from a place, and …
Today I’ve decided to try to tackle some of the more common myths I hear people saying about Zoos, in person and on the internet. Myths like this get perpetuated mainly though people anthropomorphizing (more on this later) what they are seeing in animal care institutions. Thre are also a number of anti-zoo organizations that …
We haven’t done one of these build articles in a little while, so I figured I’d come back with something simple, useful and fun! This hanging food enrichment barrel is simply a large 50 Gallon plastic barrel with some holes cut into it. The barrel is then hung in an exhibit to act as a …
In this post, I am going to be talking about the fundamentals of Contrafreeloading as it relates to a Zoological setting. I believe Contrafreeloading to be an extremely valuable concept when designing an enrichment program for a wide variety of animals in captivity and have talked about it before in “A Modern Guide to Environmental …
For this article, I have decided to go in-depth into what I think a great enrichment program for zoos and aquariums should look like. Ever since I became fascinated with animal enrichment I have been experimenting with a variety of techniques and devices and have thought a lot about what I think works best for …
A Modern Guide to Environmental Enrichment in Zoos and Aquariums Read More »
Today’s post comes to us from Stephanie Beatson, a Zookeeper with a passion for enrichment building. In this article, you will learn how to build an enrichment rope ladder that can be extremely useful when adding complexity to an exhibit. Rope ladders are pretty versatile when used as enrichment, and can be used for many …
Quite often, when trying to make enrichment items, you have to make do with what you have laying around behind barns and in sheds. This project was no exception, I had quite a few old barrels laying around that had been crushed by polar bears and I was trying to figure out what I could …
Continuing on with my PVC enrichment projects, here is an extremely easy to build Hanging PVC Tube Feeder. This is potentially the easiest item to build I have ever posted and really only requires less then 20 minutes to assemble from start to finish so this is a great project if your looking for a …
As you can see by my last few posts I’ve been on a bit of a PVC fix lately, just really playing around with different enrichment variations and goals that can be achieved with PVC. This week I’ve built a fun take on the PVC teeter-totter I built a few weeks ago and made a …
