Animal Activities at the Zoo

The tiger takes a flying leap into the pool of water and balances precariously on the barrel floating there. Another tiger is sitting on a barrel beside the pool. The rhinos are pushing  bowling balls around, the little ones especially are great at charging the balls. Then there are the hippos who pick up whole watermelons and chomp them open in one bite. No, it's not America's funniest videos, it's about real life in the zoo and something called enrichment activities designed specifically for each animal.

Zoos have changed a lot over the decades. There was a time when animals were placed in small cages and their primary purpose was to be placed on display for the general public. Thankfully people started rethinking things as more and more species of animals became extinct or endangered. Zoos soon became the only habitat for some creatures.

As the roles of zoos changed, the focus shifted from putting animals on show, with the priority being entertainment, to the welfare and health of the animals themselves.  Every effort was made to place the animals in a habitat similar to their own, not just some cage. The animals were given as much room and freedom as the zoo could manage. But something was still lacking. The only good description was, the animals were bored. Most of them still had habitats much smaller than their wild homes, plus there was no time spent foraging or hunting for food. Food was delivered. Boredom led to poor health and sometimes psychologically poor behavior.

Kim Widner, a University of Tennessee, Knoxville zoology student and a conservation research assistant for the Knoxville Zoo, is in charge of animal enrichment. She describes enrichment as "anything that makes animals more active or makes them behave as they would in the wild." It is important for zoo animals, Widner says, because it keeps them from getting bored.

Enrichment can be as simple as giving animals a strange food or something to play with, Widner says. However, she has to keep safety in mind. For example, any item an animal can take apart must be safe to eat.

If you look around the zoo, you might see bears going after honey and raisins in a plastic pipe and fish inside an ice block, rhinoceroses pushing around bowling balls and barrels, and hippos splashing a log around in water. The hippos are also given whole watermelons, which they chomp open with their powerful jaws. Elephants, zebras, and giraffes munch on browse (vegetation) made of honeysuckle vines and willow branches. The browse adds variety to their regular diet of hay and grain.

Gorillas, chimpanzees, and baboons can take part in more challenging activities, Widner says. They may get feeding tubes-either paper towel cores or sections of bamboo-with popcorn, raisins, cereal, and peanut butter hidden inside. The gorillas and chimpanzees sometimes have their food hidden inside a cardboard box. An empty box can also provide entertainment. One playful chimp will run in and out of a large box and roll around inside until she destroys the box, Widner says.

Widner keeps a log and photos of the animals doing enrichment activities. And she has more plans up her sleeve, like filling an empty pool with sand in the baboon exhibit. The sand would be like the baboons' natural desert environment. It would give them something to play in as well as a place to hide food so they can forage (hunt for their food).

Widner says the enrichment program is good for everyone. "The keepers love it. The animals love it, and the public especially loves it. They get to see the animals doing more natural activities in natural environments."