Super Enrichment and Crafty Campers

Each summer, our zoo - like many zoos and aquariums - is filled with campers of all ages (including, in recent years, adults), all of them excited to experience the zoo.  Enrichment is a major part of that experience, and pretty much every camp group I've seen in recent years has had a strong focus on that component of the zoo.  Part of it may involve learning what enrichment is by watching different animals receive enrichment.  Many zoos take it a step further by having campers actually help to build or prepare enrichment objects - such as a papier-mâché prey animal to give to the lions - and then watch the animal enjoy it. 

It was at one small zoo where I worked that I used camp groups for what I called "super enrichment" days.  We'd pick an animal, such as our bears, and go all-out on enrichment of all kinds.  Once the bears were safely locked in holding, I'd let the kids into the exhibit and they'd swarm around, doing things.  Some would have spices or bottled scent, which they'd sprinkle or spritz around the enclosure.  Some would hide food, either around the exhibit or in puzzle feeders.  I'd often get a particularly nimble child to take a jar of peanut butter and scurry into some of the low branches, putting little dabs for the bears to climb up and find.  Others would bring in a few wheelbarrows of fresh, loose sand or soil for the bears to dig through, or haul in a rotten log for the bears to tear apart.  And so on.

When the job was done, I'd gotten the kids out of the exhibit and lined up at the front (carefully counting to make sure we'd gotten them all), the bears would be turned loose into their habitat.  The kids would enjoy seeing which new stimuli the bears would go for first, showing extra pride when the animals interacted with something that they themselves had put in.  Having an all-hands-in enrichment experience not only allowed me to do a lot more enrichment in one day that I might otherwise be able to, providing the bears (or whatever animal it was that session) with a more exciting, interesting day.  It also really allowed me to highlight the importance of enrichment to the animals, and what a difference in quality of life it could make.