Posts Tagged ‘Enrichment’
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Hidden Treats: The Fun Diet of an Oakland Zoo Sun Bear

by | June 18th, 2013

zena-the-zookeeperHey kids! Zena the Zookeeper here. Welcome to my cool new blog! Now you can read about my awesome zookeeping adventures at Oakland Zoo online.

Sun-bear-with-tongue-out_web You know what I love best about being a zookeeper? No, it’s NOT all the poop I have to shovel. What I love best is taking care of the sun bears. They’re so fun to watch, especially when they’re moving around their exhibit, searching and sniffing, climbing and clawing to find their food.

In case you didn’t already know, our bears are omnivorous (om-NIV-er-us). That means they eat a variety of food—meat as well as veggies, just like you do (okay, maybe with the exception of the meal worms!) And here at Oakland Zoo, we like to give them as much variety as possible. Here’s some of the fun food treats that the bears get every day:

  • SWEET MIX: made up of popcorn, dates, peanuts, raisins, coconut and Fruit Loops (the only cereal they like.)
  • FRUIT & VEGETABLES: like grapes, pineapple, melon and yams to make sure the bears have a well-balanced diet, which is as important for animals as it is for kids.
  • HOMEMADE RICE CAKES: cooked and mixed with fun flavors such as almond, coconut or maple syrup
  • PEANUT BUTTER: mixed with other treats, or big dabs of it on tree trunks, or leftover jars from home for them to lick clean with their long tongues.
  • MEAL WORMS: yummy crawly treats like the ones wild bears find in rotten tree trunks

But I don’t just toss this stuff in a bowl on the kitchen floor like you do with your pets at home. I hide it inside all kinds of fun containers that I put around the exhibit for the bears to find and explore with their tongues and claws, such as:

  • PLASTIC DRINK BOTTLES with grapes or raisins inside
  • HARD PLASTIC PLUMBING PIPES with holes drilled in them for getting at the treats
  • HOLLOW BAMBOO STALKS stuffed with small treats
  • PINE CONES smeared with sticky treats like peanut butter or honey
  • HOLLOW PLASTIC PET TOYS filled with treats and frozen into popsicles
  • HARD PLASTIC BOOMER BALLS I smear peanut butter or jam on the outside for them to lick off  

I bet your meals at home aren’t this much fun. But your mom probably has enough work to do already, don’t you think? Luckily, I’ve got a lot of helpers here at the Zoo.

ZENA’S QUICK QUESTION: How many sun bears do we have at Oakland Zoo and what are their names?

The next time you come to the Zoo, be sure to check out the bear exhibit and you’ll find out the answer. Also, if you want to check in on the sun bears from home, did you know you can watch Oakland Zoo’s Sun Bear Cam? Here’s a link to it: http://www.oaklandzoo.org/Sun_Bear_Cam.php

You’ll also see how much fun it is to be an Oakland Zoo sun bear. Well, that’s all for now. This is Zena the Zookeeper saying “See you next time!

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Internship Weeks 8-10: Belly rubs for pigs

by | September 18th, 2012

Intern Stephanie Lo

I scratch the belly of a Guinea Hog lying down on his side while zookeeper Liz trains him to accept a blood draw. The Oakland Zoo’s Veterinary Care Center wants a blood sample to determine if the animals’ new diet has the proper nutrients. To prepare the two Guinea Hogs for an actual blood draw, they first have to become tolerant about a person holding off their leg to find the vein. Due to their excellent sense of smell, Jason and Sara initially were nervous about the rubbing alcohol on their legs. Also, the zookeeper practiced touching their legs with a blunted needle to accustom them to the motions of a blood draw. Some of the zoo’s visitors who saw us practicing in the exhibit appeared surprised that the pigs were so tolerant and even asked if the Guinea Hogs were sedated. Nope, they weren’t. They simply enjoy their belly rubs and are willing to lie down on the grass.

Jason, one of the Guinea Hogs, laying down for belly rubs during a blood draw training session.

The less glamorous aspects of my internship are the routine cleaning and disinfecting of the animals’ exhibits and night houses. I completely gutted and disinfected the rabbits’ night house, and then I filled it would fresh shavings and grass hay. The other intern and I also scrubbed the pools in the pigs’ exhibit along with disinfecting their night house and service area.

Lemur popsicles consist of fruit frozen in cups of water. The popsicles are used as enrichment on warm days.

The past few days have been warm and sunny – the perfect opportunity for making popsicles for the lemurs! A lemur enrichment popsicle consists of fruit chucks (usually grapes, watermelon, strawberries and cantaloupe) frozen in ice.

Besides continuing to conduct lemur observations for an intern project, I attended an intern class about zoological population management. This class concludes the series of intern classes and explained how zoos determine which animals to breed and to whom to breed them. The class covered what is included in a stud book and general population management concepts, like avoidance of inbreeding. I learned the founding populations in a stud book are animals directly from the wild.

For lemur observations, we do a visual scan of the exhibit every two minutes and record the behavior of a certain lemur.

Another guideline was not to keep all animals of one species concentrated in one zoo. In case of an emergency, zoos would not want all the animals of a particular species to die.

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Stuffed Animals in the Bat Exhibit, Why?

by | September 14th, 2012

An Island Flying Fox interacting with a stuffed bear.

An Island Flying Fox with a stuffed bear.

One question we are asked frequently is “why do the bats have stuffed animals?” I would love to just say they are toys for the animals to play with (and often do when I am talking to small children), but the truth is that it is just more complicated than that.
First, I need to give you some background. There has been a lot of buzz in the media lately about the way zoos pair up animals for breeding. Many people are now aware that it is not done by chance and that we breed specifically to enhance and maintain as much genetic diversity as possible. What that means is that some animals are going to get more opportunities to breed than others, simply because of how heavily their families are represented within the captive population. The result is many animals are not recommended to breed and therefore have to be prevented from breeding by some method. The bats at the Oakland Zoo are on loan to us from Lubee Bat Conservancy where the majority of the fruit bat breeding happens in the US. Most of our bats have well represented genes in the captive population. The result is that Lubee gave us ALL male bats. That’s right; all 28 bats in our exhibit are boys, no babies here!
The second thing you need to understand is the concept of enrichment. AZA accredited zoos like the Oakland Zoo strive to provide animals with the optimal care and welfare. This means not only excellent medical care and nutritious food, but also enriched environments that allow animals to perform behaviors that they would naturally perform if they were living in the wild. This can take the form of large naturalistic exhibits like our sun bear or elephant exhibits, or it can take the form of a 50 foot tall enclosure that allows space for the large bats to fly. Sometimes it includes objects that may not be found in the wild, but still provide an opportunity for the animals to perform natural behaviors. This type of enrichment is most frequently seen with our primates. For example, in the wild, chimps will use twigs to collect termites from inside rotting logs. At the zoo, we will give the chimps other types of toys such as PVC tubes or Kongs with treats inside and they must use the twigs to retrieve them. Natural behavior from an unnatural object still results in increased welfare.
So now that we understand these two concepts, we put them together. Mostly our all male colony of bats works well, but for a few months out of each year, they go into breeding season and that causes some discord and a few disagreements in the group. Boys will be boys, right? They feel a need to chase each other out of territories, scent mark and generally just be cranky with each other. We discovered pretty quickly that the number of injuries in our bat colony increased each fall, coinciding with breeding season. While none of the injuries were serious, we still felt that we could improve their welfare if we reduced the number of injuries.
Enter the teddy bear! We hoped (and thankfully were right) that hanging stuffed animals in the exhibit would allow the bats the opportunity to take out their frustrations on something besides each other. Success! In fact, the concept was so successful (a 90% reduction in injuries) that keepers presented their findings at the 2010 Animal Behavior Management Alliance conference – winning an award for their efforts as well as becoming a cover article for their newsletter! The article has also been published in The Shape of Enrichment, an internationally known zoo trade publication focusing on enrichment for animals of all species.
Hanging stuffed animals in the bat exhibit allows our bats to perform the natural territorial behavior spurred by their hormones while preventing injuries within the colony. Natural behavior AND increased welfare from a simple child’s toy. While they may not look like a natural part of the exhibit, stuffed animals are an important component of the care we provide to our bats. Look around the zoo next time you visit and you may notice other exhibits with unusual enrichment items and now you know they serve some purpose that enhances the animals’ well-being.

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Internship Weeks 6 & 7: Are the Lemurs Reading?

by | August 29th, 2012

Intern Stephanie Lo

Gripping a stopwatch, pen and clipboard in the palms of my hands, I walk up towards the Oakland Zoo‘s lemur deck to conduct observations. Typically directly after serving one of their meals, the other intern and I will pick two lemurs and record their behavior for up to an hour. The behavior categories include interacting with enrichment, which we vary throughout the week. By recording how much time a lemur spends on a particular activity, we can construct a graph of their “typical day.” When I first began interning on String 7, it was difficult to identify and tell apart any of the lemurs. Now, I am able to distinguish the animals apart by their physical characteristics and personality.

 

Ring tailed lemurs interacting with phone book enrichment item.

“Are the lemurs reading?” one visitor asked me after I served their lunch. No, the phone books were one of the manipulative enrichments used this week. Stuffing pieces of produce between the phone book’s pages encourages the lemurs to manipulate the item to reach the food. By conducting observations of the lemurs, I can later analyze the data and compare the effectiveness of each enrichment item. Even though PVC pipe connectors, cat litter containers, and cardboard boxes sound like an odd combination, they are other examples of manipulative lemur enrichment. Both the plastic cat litter containers and cardboard boxes contain holes into which the lemurs must reach, and we sometimes use clips to hang up two of the plastic containers.

 

Eugene and Anthony, the two blue-eyed black lemurs, slowly approached me while eyeing the dried cranberries in my hand. I felt the smoothness of Eugene’s palms as he reached out to grasp the cranberry. His aquamarine eyes darted around as he chewed the sliver of cranberry. On Wednesday morning, I got the chance to assist the zoo keeper with cooperative feeding out on exhibit. Cooperative feeding rewards the dominant individual for letting the subordinate individual to eat in its presence. The male ring tail lemur, Jeager, is subordinate to the three female ring tail lemurs; the two blue-eyed black lemurs are also subordinate to the females. Every time the dominant female saw me feed the blue-eyed black lemurs that were about 10 feet away, the zoo keeper would reward her for not chasing them away. Helping with cooperative feeding is an opportunity to work closely with the lemurs and observe how it shapes their behavior.

 

One of the Oakland Zoo’s vet technicians led this week’s behind-the-scenes tour  of the Veterinary Care Center (VCC). I got to see some of the portable equipment the VCC staff uses, such as the anesthesia and x-ray machines. The vet technician showed us the various sizes of tracheal tubes used for anesthetizing the zoo animals, which range in size from a small bird to an elephant. She said that the VCC sometimes will coordinate with other veterinarians for major procedures. For the larger animals, such as elephants and lions, the VCC staff can exam or treat them in their night house because they will not fit into the surgery room.

Wooden feeders are an example of manipulative enrichment.

Plastic cat litter containers have holes cut in the sides. They can be hung up in the exhibit so lemurs must balance and reach inside for food items.

Cardboard boxes can be filled with straw and the lemurs’ food.

 

 

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Internship Week 5: Pig Walking and Lemur Watching

by | August 15th, 2012

Intern Stephanie Lo

Throughout this week of my internship, I got to both learn more about operant conditioning and participate in training a few zoo animals.

 

We turn on a misting hose in the guinea hogs' exhibit on warm days.

The week began with walking Jason and Sara, the two Guinea Hogs, up to the Oakland Zoo‘s Veterinary Care Center to weigh them. Three other interns and I worked to harness them and continue the training we started last week. Two of us were in charge of delivering the reinforcement; in this case it was a variety of chopped produce. The other two held the leash, harness and clicker. It was important the rate of reinforcement was not too low or the Guinea Hogs might lose interest and turn to foraging. When training any animal, especially one that is as large and strong as a Guinea Hog, it is imperative to be alert to your animal. For instance, Sara is afraid of large and loud trucks so we remained aware of our surroundings while leaving the Children’s Zoo. In this week’s intern class on operant conditioning, I learned that escape is a primary reinforcer and permanent associations about something can last for years.

 

Patrick, one of the Nubian goats, in the main stall of the contact yard.

As part of the routine animal husbandry, zoo keeper Alan works with the goats and sheep to trim their hooves. During this week, I got to give out the reinforcement, which was food, to the sheep during the training session. Although the zoo keepers oftentimes use clickers to mark the behavior, Alan whistles instead because he uses both his hands to hold the animal’s leg and to hold the pair of hoof trimmers. The sheep appeared more skittish than the goats about hoof trimming. Alan had them stand on a mat during the training session, and he also worked to desensitize one of the sheep to touching its hind legs in preparation for the actual trimming part.

 

A ring tail lemur interacting with enrichment. The PVC connector stuffed with food and straw is a form of manipulative enrichment.

As I mentioned in my Week 2 blog post, the lemurs get daily enrichment, which I mark on the calendar. String 7 zoo keeper Liz organized the list of possible enrichment into categories, such as manipulative, environmental or sensory. Manipulative enrichment includes putting food into containers with holes so the lemurs have to manipulate the object to retrieve their meal. One day this week, I helped fill plastic PVC connectors with their lunch and straw. After doing a thorough scrub of the lemurs’ night house in the morning, the other interns and I did a little interior designing. We rearranged the “furniture” inside the night house, which is a form of environmental enrichment.

 

A ring tail lemur eating a piece of Romaine lettuce, one of the leafy greens in their diet.

A major part of this week included conducting observations of the lemurs. Depending on the type of observations, the time intervals range from every 30 seconds to every 2 minutes. Usually I pick an easily identifiable lemur to observe while another intern keeps track of the time. The categories on the observation sheet comprise of social behaviors, like huddling with another lemur or being groomed, and also of agnostic behaviors like marking with scent glands or chasing. The observations can be done any time of the day and inform the zoo keepers on how the lemurs interact with enrichment and with each other. The data collected can be used to make ethograms or to determine what percentage of the day a particular lemur does a certain activity.

 

One form of enrichment is scattering their diet throughout the grassy areas of the exhibit. Three of the ring tail lemurs foraging for their food and sunning themselves.

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Internship Week 3: Top Chef – Zoo edition

by | July 28th, 2012

Intern Stephanie Lo

For rabbit enrichment, sometimes I put hay, leafy greens and produce into plastic toy balls.

Much like Top Chef contestants must complete culinary challenges with certain ingredients, both zoo keepers and Oakland Zoo commissary staff must prepare diets for the animals according to specific requirements. Although Top Chef contestants work under the camera spotlight to please the reality show judges, zoo keepers may appear to work more in the background. However, both work under a time constraint.

On Tuesday afternoons, I work in the zoo commissary to assist in the preparation of diets. This week I began by helping a volunteer prepare the birds’ diets and then started cutting up produce into two inch pieces for the “elephant buckets.” These buckets consisted of two buckets of potatoes, one of apples and one of bananas, totaling about 40 pounds. It’s safe to say that I have never sliced so much produce at one time!

Beginning to prepare the lemurs' breakfast. Part of their breakfast is sweet potatoes and canned primate.

 

This week, the commissary received a new shipment of live crickets and mealworms. After helping prepare diets in the early afternoon, I faced the task of opening the shipment of boxes. Being slightly squeamish around bugs, I took a deep breath before taking out a pocketknife to separate the tapped boxes. Even though I’m not extremely grossed out by mealworms, I have never dealt with so many. But then again, I’ve never worked in a zoo commissary before. Each cardboard box housed about 1000 mealworms, which needed to be transferred to the large plastic mealworm tub in the commissary. The crickets proved to be a bit trickier. I had to make sure they did not escape while I relocated them into the two large cricket garbage cans.

Lemur lunch contains a variety of chopped up fruit. This particular day's lunch includes berries, cantaloupe and peaches.

String 7 prepares most of its diets in the Children’s Zoo kitchen, so most days the other intern and I get to chop up and measure produce for the lemurs, pigs and rabbits. Typically, I bring a reusable bag down to the walk-in commissary refrigerator to go “grocery shopping.” A plethora of fruits, vegetables and leafy greens fill the shelves and plastic cartons. The lemurs’ lunch is one of the most enjoyable to prepare because it usually consists of fresh fruits like cantaloupe, bananas, blueberries or peaches. The zoo keepers try to have a lot of variety in their diet, which also depends on the produce donated to the zoo.

I chop and measure out leafy greens and fresh produce for String 7's rabbits.

 

 

While going “grocery shopping” in the commissary, I began to learn the names of leafy greens included in the diets and learn the animals’ preferences. Sure, I was already familiar with Romaine lettuce, spinach and bok choy. But after the first few days, I began to identify the rainbow Swiss chard, collard greens and jicama. Just as not all people are avid vegetable eaters, the lemurs are not as fond of their daily greens. Consequently, we feed them most of their vegetables for dinner so they have more time to eat them before breakfast the next morning.

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