He is allowed to sleep outside in his enclosure overnight,and is then encouraged into the "housing block" each morning. Whilst he is in there they check he is ok and leave a couple of treats for him. Then the keeper goes into the enclosure and places his various food items all over his exhibit,sometimes inside cardboard boxes,inside bags with straw inside also,under piles of logs and sometimes they place fish or meat on floating dustbin lids on his lake so he has further enrichment finding those.They do have a small boat to place food items on the small rock island in the lake,but I don't think they have done this yet. He is then released into his enclosure at opening times so he is foraging for food when the first visitors arrive. ( If anyone is planning on going,this is the best time to view him. He is always active for atleast an hour or 2 whilst he finds his food ,then usually goes for a swim for upto an hour)
His diet is large and very varied. There is a sign saying what his daily consumption is,but I cant remember it off top of my head. I will take a photo next time I'm there for you.
I have seen him consume lots of Horse meat,i know he gets pig and cow also. He had a duck,not wild, on Sunday which I think was quite a new experience for him as he sat down and took ages devouring every bit of meat on it.He had some small fish,possibly sardines,on Sunday,and I have seen him eat mackerel too. He gets apples,corn on the cob,water-melon,grapes,nuts,berries and all sorts of stranger things like peanut butter and egg mayo sarnies as treats. He likes to drink cod-liver oil from a small watering can too,thats his all time favourite apparently.
I have observed him stripping bark from floating silver birch trees,and also seen him try to break open decaying tree trunks that have been brought in for enrichment,so I assume he is looking for grubs and bugs also.( I have put a couple of photos of the bark eating and water-melon consumption on the gallery in early October if you want to have a look.)
