Environmental Enrichment on a Budget!

Environmental Enrichment on a Budget with Student Zookeepers!

(Hi guys, I thought you would all enjoy this post, my first in a while! I wrote this whilst at University and working at Reaseheath - it was meant to be published in Ratel, but for some reason, it didn't!)

It is widely known and practised that environmental enrichment is beneficial to many captive animals. Poole stated back in 1997 that “happy animals make good science”, which has proved to be highly relevant with the numerous behavioural/biological studies conducted on captive animals, whether they be in a lab or a zoological environment. These studies have provided an insight into the lives of wild animals, with results able to be projected onto the in-situ conservation of wild animals. We, as zoological collections, are always striving to improve animal welfare and environmental enrichment is an excellent way to do this – and it can be very cheap and simple! I conducted my dissertation on the effect of environmental enrichment on the behaviour (and therefore welfare) of laboratory housed Xenopus laevis (African clawed frog). I found that the provision of simple enrichment, in the form of black plastic tubes, significantly reduced incidents of frogs swimming repeatedly into the walls of the tanks. This is an excellent example of a cheap, yet effective enrichment for improving the welfare of captive amphibians.

At the Reaseheath Zoo, many of us are student keepers, and it is important that we can use simple, inexpensive, yet effective ways of enriching the animals’ lives. Compiling ideas allows us to develop our knowledge, which we can apply in our future careers - every day is a beneficial learning curve. Here, I discuss some of the things we have tried at our collection with the hope of sharing ideas with the readers of RATEL.

Scent Enrichment

I have tested scent enrichment with the serval (Leptailurus serval) in a variety of scents and techniques. What seems to be the most effective is a ‘serval sized box’ filled with hay and sprigs of mint and rosemary. Though incredibly simple, the serval was seen throughout the day sitting in the box, scent marking and digging. The next morning, the box was completely destroyed, showing how he really got the use out of it! 

Serval with scent enrichment

Following this success, the enrichment has been provided again, using different scents each time. Rubbing mint leaves around the enclosure, creating a trail, also proved to be enriching and the serval spent time scent marking over the mint. This enrichment was then tried on the bat eared foxes (Otocycon megalotis), however, they didn’t seem to be bothered by it, sniffing the box and walking off. The next day, there was no evidence of the enrichment being touched overnight. We are still working hard to provide effective enrichment for the foxes during the summer months when they are mostly nocturnal. 

The Asian short clawed otters (Aonyx cinerea) were another species where this enrichment was tested. This proved effective, with otters being seen lying in the box and rubbing themselves all over it! The next day, the box was non-existent and the hay had been taken into the nest boxes! Recently, I was able to use blood to create a scent trail for both the otter and the serval. Collecting the blood (from the bottom of a box where some meat was defrosting) into a syringe meant blood trails could be made as enrichment.

Otter with blood trail

When using this for the serval, I deliberately made the blood trail away from where the main food was, in order for the serval to investigate his surroundings. The serval was seen to follow this blood trail into a bush to find a chick, before finding the main food and settling down to eat it. This was also the reaction from the male otter. It was great to see him being so active and exploring his enclosure, so this enrichment is sure to be repeated in the future.

Food Enrichment

Wonga with wicker ball

I tried a new enrichment with the male otter (Wonga), including his favourite food. I found a natural looking, wicker ball in Wilkos (other shops are available!), stuffed it with hay and pieces of day old chick, which provided Wonga with a lot of fun, causing him to have to work for his food! Seeing him throw the ball around in an attempt to get the food out was amazing to see, and like the box, the hay was removed for bedding! We are hoping to try this out with the meerkats (Suricata suricatta), however, 13 meerkats will require many wicker balls that will probably be destroyed within seconds! As a small collection and working college, we are lucky in that not all enrichment has to be natural, but it is preferred. This has allowed us to use bottle enrichment with the ring tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) multiple times following the success of the first usage. Cutting holes in the bottles and tying them to beams and

Lemur with bottle feeder

branches with bailing twine allowed for the bottles to be manipulated in an attempt to get the food. The lemurs were seen spending around an hour using the enrichment. It seemed to be that the lemur with the bottle would be trying to get out the food, and the lemur sitting on the floor underneath would get all of the food that dropped out! Our ring tailed lemurs are quite inquisitive, which is why this enrichment worked so well with them.

 We tried this enrichment with the spider monkeys (Ateles spp), however, they aren’t too fond of new things and by the next day, the bottles had not been touched, and so were removed from the enclosure. It can be hard to enrich the spider monkeys as they are so wary of novel items added to the environment. We have two types of callitrichidae, the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) and the critically endangered cotton-top tamarin (Saguinus oedipus). The bottle enrichment could not be used here, so one of the keepers came up with a novel way of feeding mealworms. A cardboard tube was cut into small pieces, slotted together to form a ball, then stuffed with hay and mealworms. The more hay stuffed in the ball, the harder it was for the tamarins and marmosets to extract the mealworms! 

Cotton top tamarin with ball enrichment

These balls were able to be cable tied to existing branches and could easily be removed. They were proved to be successful, with the cotton top tamarins foraging for the mealworms and taking the balls apart to reach the food. This enrichment has since been reproduced, with the same positive results.

As a small collection, we are working hard to compile an enrichment file, bringing together ideas from all keepers, to share information and make the enrichment file available for everyone to refer to when stuck for enrichment ideas.

I would like to thank my colleagues for assisting with creating enrichment, Jessica Chapfield for the photos of the cotton top tamarin and Amy Dunbar for the support in producing this article.

Work Experience at Folly Farm

Hi guys, today’s blog is about my recent work experience at Folly Farm in South Wales. As many of my readers will know, I spent the month of July doing work experience here, having an amazing time whilst doing so!

Although I have done a couple of different placements before, I still had no idea what to expect! Every collection is completely different to work at, and I feel that it is important that I have learnt how similar animals are managed by different collections. So on my first day, after my induction, I was delighted to find that I would be working with the critically endangered Eastern black rhino. Folly Farm is home to two lovely rhinos, Nkosi and Manyara. Nkosi came from Port Lympe and is quite young at 5 years of age, and Manyara who is 17 years old, who came from Chester Zoo. They are hoping to have a new breeding female join the collection very soon, as Manyara unfortunately cannot breed due to health reasons. Working with the rhinos was incredibly rewarding, as after all the cleaning in the morning, we were able to collect browse and use enrichment feeders to hang it up. I was really quite surprised that nettles aren’t actually good for rhinos to eat, whereas giraffes cannot get enough of them! Working with the rhinos was absolutely amazing and I was lucky enough to get to work with them a few times during my placement.

Training session with Nkosi 

On my second day, I was thrown in the deep end with the giraffes! I have never worked with such a huge straw bed in my life – I was half tempted to hide in the bed and have a nap in the afternoon! Giraffes are hard work, but they are amazing animals and worth it! Folly Farm holds 4 male hybrid giraffes – Zulu (the biggest), Rian (naughty), Sillan (cheeky), and Tahaqua (nervous), and they all seem to get on quite well! I worked with the giraffes quite a lot during my placement and was able to help out with training too! The giraffes are shut inside overnight and are provided with various enrichment items to keep them busy! We even tried marmite smeared in a tube and it went down well! In addition to the giraffes, chapman’s zebra, nile lechwe, guinea fowl and dwarf mongoose make up the section – it’s really quite large and I have huge respect for the keeper on this section!

Feeding the giraffes during the talk 

I really enjoyed working with all the animals in the zoo, and each species had their own personality! The penguin keepers introduced me to the 6 penguin chicks who were just learning to catch fish underwater! All named after Simpson’s characters, they were quite the hit with the public. In the four weeks I was there, all chicks had learnt how to catch fish underwater and in the week after I left, they all headed off down South to another collection to grow up and have their own families! Whilst I was there, the fossa and bongo headed off to other collections as part of breeding recommendations, which really showed how well good zoos contribute towards conservation.

The colony of Humboldt penguins are fed multiple times per day!

One of the largest sections on the zoo was the bird section. Such a diverse section, I worked with birds I had never even heard of before! Helping out with rebranching and training was really rewarding and I learnt so much about enclosure design and animal training too. I think the ducks and the ne ne geese were my favourite on this section – ducks are just hilarious! I was also shown incubation which was awesome – they were incubating lots of different chicken eggs when I left. I never knew how hard birds were to care for! Such specialised diets and husbandry requirements. The other large section was the small mammals section, which, like the bird section, was spread out throughout the whole zoo! Both groups of meerkats had new pups born in my time there -  very exciting! The section was so diverse, and it was really cool to see the cusimanse and have the chance to work with them – I love the noise they make when they’re given food, similar to the grunt/bark of a meerkat, but angrier.

Cusimanse! 

Folly interactive is an indoor exhibit, featuring many different reptiles, invertebrates, birds, amphibians, a sloth and some Rodrigues fruit bats. I really did enjoy working with the bats – after spending 3 months on the twilight section at Chester last year, I grew to miss the fluffy, flying potatoes! (I once saw a photo of a bat and it looked like a potato with wings, trust me). I was able to assist with the redesigning of an enclosure in Folly interactive, as well as learn about many different husbandry techniques for different species – I did however steer well clear of the tarantulas!

I was really lucky to be able to work with the carnivores a few times during my placement, something I massively enjoyed – I think I’m a carnivore girl at heart! I was able to watch and take part in training with Hugo, the male lion, and was also shown how you would train an animal to present part of its body for health checks or injections. I feel as though this is something I can definitely use in my future career. As I work with small carnivores at my part-time job, it was great to discuss diets, training, behaviour, enrichment etc and I have been able to actually use these to develop new enrichment with the animals at work.

Training Hugo

The last section I worked on was the primates. Again, this section was spread out across the whole zoo and included 3 types of lemur (red ruffed, ring tailed and black and white ruffed), common marmosets, barbary macaques, squirrel monkeys, white faced saki monkeys, red handed tamarin and a grey legged douroucouli, who’s enclosure I was able to help with redesigning! The primates were great to work with – they all had different personalities! The barbary macaques are all ex-pets/rescued, but do really well at Folly – you wouldn’t know their past unless you were told this! Primate poo is still one of the worst types of poo I have experienced, which is a shame because otherwise, primates are great fun to work with.

Overall, I had an absolutely amazing 4 weeks, and I definitely did not want to leave. It was a great experience and I couldn’t recommend the collection enough! All the keepers were easy to get along with and so willing to share their expertise! If any of the keepers end up reading this, I want to say a massive thank you for everything.

National Zookeeper Week!

Hi guys! Hope you’ve been really enjoying my posts so far. As some of you may know, this week is National Zookeeper Week!

This started in America, with the AAK (American Association of Zookeepers) having an annual celebration in the third week of July each year! This year it falls between the 18^th and 23^rd of July, and is a week dedicated to zookeepers! The celebration hopes to raise the profile of zoo and aquarium keepers throughout the year, and recognise all the hard work they do to look after and conserve many endangered species.

Amur tiger at Leipzig Zoo

Zookeepers work 365 days a year, working long hours, to care for many incredible species! Many work on Christmas day and New Year’s Day, but it doesn’t phase them! Extreme weather conditions are also a battle, but zookeepers power through because their animals need them! As well as the well known job of picking up poo, keepers are also great observers, able to notice the slightest change in an animal. They are nutritionists, constantly changing diets to suit the species, animal trainers, heavy lifters, gardeners, DIY experts, able to solve problems, and most of all, hard working.

Lots of keepers have also published academic papers regarding topics such as behaviour, enrichment, training, husbandry and diets, among others. These papers help other collections manage their animals, sharing ideas on what works, and what doesn’t work, as well as how different individuals of the same species can be so diverse in personality.

ABWAK logo

Here in the UK, we have ABWAK (Association of British and Irish Wild Animal Keepers), which many of UK keepers are members of! It’s great for organising workshops, and as mentioned in a previous post, holds an annual symposium (gathering of zookeepers!) All members of ABWAK are also automatic members of the International Congress of Zookeepers (ICZ), which aims to connect keepers worldwide. The international sharing of information really benefits all collections involved, conserving worldwide biodiversity. The ICZ also hold congress’, with the most recent one being held at Leipzig Zoo last September (2015). After speaking to those who went, it sounded like an absolutely awesome event, something I wish I had attended!

ICZ logo

Anyway, enough of my rambling, Happy National Zookeeper Week to all the keepers out there!