intotheark - features - environmental enrichment

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What is Environmental Enrichment?

ave you been to a zoo recently? If you have than you probably noticed that at least some of the animals weren't in cages. Some of the exhibits probably had ponds and trees, or perhaps some were covered in snow and ice. Did you ever wonder why zoos have such lavish exhibits for certain animals?

Penguins on the "coastline" at Cotswold Wildlife Park

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These "naturalistic" exhibits are a part of the latest method of zookeeping called environmental enrichment. Environmental enrichment can briefly be described as changing a captive animal's surroundings to allow it to express it's natural behaviors. There are many different ways to enrich an animal's environment. One way is to provide the largest exhibit possible that resembles the animal's natural habitat. For example a rain forest animal, such as the Golden Lion Tamarin, will need a lot of trees and vegetation while a desert animal, such as the Camel, is used to a hot, dry, sand covered habitat. Other methods of enrichment include hiding food throughout the exhibit for animals to find, and keeping social animals in large groups, but solitary animals alone. While there are many ways to enrich an exhibit, how the zoo will choose to do so depends on the animal's natural habitat as well as the types of behaviors the animal shows in the wild such as foraging vs. hunting, climbing vs. digging, or being active during the day (diurnal) vs. being active at night (nocturnal).

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