Behavioural Enrichment for carnivores

[Nigel]

Wellington zoo has recently experimented with a new idea for its lions and tigers -- the zoo crew made life size paper mache models of typical game animals ( zebra , warthog etc ) and stuffed them full of meat , before placing them in the enclosures .
It appeared to ber a success , with the exception of the male lion , who just sniffed it once and lost all further interest .
This concept will only be used on rare intervals , due to the amount of manpower it takes to make the models , but I think any such scheme is a good success . In the wild , the animals have to learn to think laterally sometimes in order to get a meal .
Perhaps readers could ask their local zoo to try this technique as an experiment , and ask what other techniques they employ for their carnivores ?
Other common ones in NZ is to rub the faeces of another animal on a piece of meat , give them a frozen piece of meat which they must lick in order to thaw the meat so it can be eaten .....

 

[patrick]

adelaide zoo's new sumatran exhibit

adelaide zoo have announced that construction is about to begin on the next phase of their southeast asian precint. a new sumatran forest exhibit will be made with enclosures for tigers and orang-utans. interestingly, the ajoining enclosures will be designed in a way that the tigers will have accesss to the orang enclosure when the apes are off-exhibit (such as during the night) and the orangs will have climbing structures that will extend into the tigers enclosure. of course the design of the poles will not allow for the orangs to decend nor the tigers to ascend, but the animals and vistors will have clear views of them sharing eachothers space. the idea was to stimulate the animals senses more. the exhibit will also feature an underwater viewing window wher you can see the tigers swimming and a recreation of a sumatran longhouse for visitors. the other exhibits in the precinct will be refurbished somewhat and then a 3rd stage will see the completion of exhibits for new species to the zoo - asiatic wild dogs, binturongs and komodo dragons.