On the Wing, On the Move

The vast majority of shorebirds that I've seen in zoos and aquariums have been injured, non-releasable wild specimens, so their migratory days are over.  It strikes me, however, that long-distance migration is perhaps one of the definitive behaviors that captive animals, no matter the size and quality of their enclosure, are not able to participate in.  Even if the enclosure is large enough to allow a decent amount of flight, the scenery within it will remain unchanged

I've sometimes wondered if it would be possible to develop a sort of wind tunnel, like an air-treadmill, that could be used to re-create the experience of long-distance flight.  Could an aquatic version work for marine species?  That's at least partially the rationale between the ring-shaped tanks sometimes used for sharks, to allow them to continue to swim continuously.  Or even a traditional treadmill, designed for zebra, wildebeest, and other migratory mammals?

Of course, if you developed such a contraption, how likely is it that the animals would even use it?  Willingly, at any rate; a bird that's flying over the Gulf of Mexico for its annual migration can hardly decide to stop halfway through because it's bored of the experience - it's committed.  But then I think of birds like Canada geese, many of which no longer opt to migrate because it's no longer necessary for them in their safe, food-rich, human-controlled landscapes.

Perhaps it would also be beneficial to at least try to recreate the migratory experience by making seasonal changes to the enclosure.  This could be done both with physical features, such as rearranging the habitat throughout the year, to modifying climatic factors, such as temperature, rainfall, and photoperiod, depending on the species and the seasonally-different habitats they occupy (something that several zoos already do to encourage breeding among species in which reproduction is triggered by changes in photoperiod).  

In some cases, the idea might expand to having separate enclosures for different seasons, letting the animals truly "migrate" in a sense - especially if it were possible to let them shift themselves, maybe birds flying through enclosed tunnels from enclosure A to B to possibly C.  At many zoos, animals have separate summer and winter enclosures anyway when they are brought in for winter holding - this could just be an extension of that idea.

Some of this is a bit far-fetched and expensive, especially to do on a large scale for a variety of creatures.  Still, the first steps towards any advancement in zoo animal husbandry usually start with the utterance of those two magically words, "What if..."