Toronto Zoo Enrichment Opportunities

Introduction:

Animals are said to have optimal welfare when:¹

	They have control over their environment
	They have opportunities for exploration and play

"Environmental Enrichment" includes activities in zoos that generally proceed with one or more of the following benefits to animals:²

	Increasing environmental novelty, change and complexity to provide animals meaningful interactions with their surroundings, diversify their behaviour, and mediate social interactions.
	Presenting cognitive challenges such as learning what a trainer is requesting or solving a problem.
	Meeting specific behavioural needs, such as a need for shelter/hiding or foraging, to encourage the expression of diverse, species-appropriate behaviour.
	Stimulating and mediating social interaction by providing social groupings of appropriate sex ratio, age classes, genetic relatedness and experience

Enrichment Opportunity:

No longer should animal welfare be considered complete by simply providing animals with food, water, shelter, and medical care. The psychological well-being of an animal must be considered when evaluating the optimal welfare for an animal. A formal enrichment program will provide the Toronto Zoo with a great opportunity to help ensure the animals in it's care are experiencing an optimal level of care.

Many components of an enrichment program are already being practiced by the keepers at the Toronto Zoo³. However, a more formal program needs to be developed and implemented which should aim at incorporating enrichment into the daily routine of the keeper's schedule and involve all animals. It should also include scientific evaluation of enrichment techniques being employed to ensure they are providing appropriate and optimal enrichment.

Discussions with keepers has produced three general suggestions to aid in the implementation of a formal enrichment program. The first suggestion is to increase the accessibility of material required for the production and implementation of enrichment devices. The second suggestion is to increase the accessibility of enrichment ideas. This could be accomplished by providing a more organized set of resources for the keepers to easily access. Another suggestion with this point is to try to encourage exchange of enrichment ideas between keepers in different areas by providing opportunities such as enrichment workshops where keepers could meet to exchange ideas and easily design enrichment devices. The final suggestion is to expedite the enrichment approval process. One way in which this could be accomplished would be through the formation of an enrichment committee, comprised of staff from various divisions in the zoo, to quickly allow approval to occur.

References:

Sheperdson, D. and K. Carlstead. (2000). When Did You Last Forget to Feed Your Tiger? AZA Annual Conference Proceedings, 227-229
Sheperdson, D. and K. Carlstead. (2000). When Did You Last Forget to Feed Your Tiger? Raising the Bar on Environmental Enrichment in AZA Zoos and Aquaria. AZA Annual Conference Proceedings, 231-235
Current enrichment practices which have been documented in this report