Enrichment

Enrichment may be defined as a process for improving or enhancing animal environments and care within the context of their inhabitants’ behavioral biology and natural history.³ It is a dynamic process in which changes to structures and husbandry practices are made with the goals of increasing behavioral choices available to animals and drawing out their species-appropriate behaviors and abilities, thus enhancing animal welfare.

The enrichment framework developed at Disney’s Animal Programs provides a process to ensure that the enrichment program meets the needs of the animals and provides them with the opportunity to experience enhanced animal welfare.¹ Animal welfare involves the physical health of the animals (e.g., preventing and treating illnesses and injuries) and their psychologic well-being. As an important aspect of welfare, an animal’s psychologic well-being is influenced by whether it can do the following:

• Perform its highly motivated behaviors

• Respond to environmental conditions using its evolutionary adaptations

• Develop and use its cognitive abilities

• Effectively cope with challenges in its environment

Thus, keeping a snake in a plastic box with newspaper and a water bowl is not sufficient. We should attempt to provide a more complex environment to watch and enjoy the animals that we keep in captivity. Balancing proper husbandry, thermoregulation, and veterinary concerns can become difficult, but it is our obligation to do this for the animals we keep in captivity.

Training

The term animal training often conjure up images of a parrot show, side show, or animal act in a circus in which animals have been trained to complete a variety of unnatural acts for our entertainment. Training now has a different context, which includes teaching animals to exhibit a variety of behaviors for husbandry, educational, and entertainment purposes.

Animals continually gather information and respond to it. This process may be described as learning. A similar definition might be that learning is a change in behavior that occurs as the result of practice. Whether we are aware of it or not, as animal caretakers, we influence what is learned by animals in zoos and aquariums. In other words, as caretakers, we are teaching or training our animals all the time. Sometimes, we are aware of what we are teaching or training; we make conscious efforts to train animals to exhibit a variety of behaviors. Sometimes, we influence (train) animals’ behavior inadvertently through our actions, husbandry routines, or other stimuli present in the captive environment. In effect, animal care staff is always involved in training and they need to be aware of that. Training is all about associations. The key to an optimal captive environment is to facilitate animals’ opportunities to make associations that enhance their well-being.

Setting up a Training Program

A well-planned, consistently delivered training process is critical to the success of any program. To achieve this type of program, many facilities use a framework that is taught in course given by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA), Managing Animal Enrichment and Training Programs. Steps in this SPIDER model framework include setting goals, planning, implementing, documenting, evaluating, and readjusting. More information on this process may be found at Disney’s Animal Programs: Training Program.² It is beneficial to start a training program by determining the overall behavioral goals (i.e., detailing the specific behaviors to be trained). This is the first step in the SPIDER process, setting goals. During this goal development process, it is important to include all parties involved with the management of the animals. This may include meeting with and seeking feedback from keepers, veterinary staff, nutritionist, behavioral husbandry staff, curators, and managers. Goals should be based on the needs of staff. For example, a veterinarian would like a blood sample from the animal. The goals in this case would then be to train an animal to enter a crate and desensitize to a blood draw. The next step is planning; having everyone on the same page, with clearly laid out plans, assignments, and timelines helps facilitate a smooth process. Defining roles and creating clear avenues of communication among all participants is also important. This may be accomplished through regularly scheduled team meetings, a consistent method of documentation, and continual communication among all staff involved in training. Planning also includes creating a training plan, a step by step guide for how trainers are going to shape the behavior. Training plans are meant only to be a guide, a way for the trainer to think through the process he or she starts training an animal. Creating a training plan also creates a historical document for future reference. One way to write a plan is to establish what the final behavior will look like and then break down the behavior into a series of small steps; these small steps are called successive approximations. The next sections will discuss other considerations when starting a program.