Giving enrichment to the program animals I work with on a daily basis is on of my favorite parts of my life. You find your heart growing three sizes (a la the Grinch) when you see an animal enjoying enrichment. How can you tell they are enjoying it? It depends on the species. One of the forms of enrichment very commonly used is called browse. Browse is basically tree cuttings. (the name browse comes from the fact that many animals ‘browse’ through trees looking for their favorite leaves) Browse is fed to many animals in the zoo as a type of food enrichment. I give browse to most of the program animals, but not to eat. It is the different smells and textures that they enjoy. The reptiles enjoy it most. Snakes wake out of their usual slumber to slither over and flick their tongues over (smell) the new things in their area. Lizards and turtles climb over and under the leaves and branches smelling and sometimes snacking. This week, one of the neatest reactions came from one of our tarantulas. As soon as I put the small branch in her area she moved underneath the leaves. After a few minutes she started poking just the front part of her body out from under the leaves then darting back under the cover of the leaves. It almost looked like she was playing peek-a-boo. She really wasn’t – there was a cricket (aka dinner) nearby and she was acting just like wild tarantulas do: hiding from her prey then popping out to ambush. And that is the point of enrichment – to allow our animals to act as they would in the wild.
That’s enough for this week. Pop in next week to meet the latest addition to our program animals!
