Paintings created by animals

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DeydraOZ

Well-Known Member
A really neat enrichment activity that some keepers an animals get involved in is making paintings. It seems pretty popular with penguins and elephants.

And it seems I've started a collection of paintings done by several animals.
I have a really large painting done by Rama the elephant at the Oregon Zoo, a painting done by Picasso the blue & gold macaw at Tracy Aviary, and a painting done by Cass the wolverine who used to live at Zoo Montana but has since been moved to Minnesota for breeding.

I was wondering if any other zoos did this sort of enrichment. And as a plus sold the paintings in their gift shop or have behind the scene experiences where you can get your own custom painting.

I'll be traveling around the southwest soon so I was hoping to see if any of the zoos around there happen to do this.
 
Chester's apes did some paintings (with no help at all ;) ) which were sold to raise money for the EAZA ape campaign. To keep the value and rarity of the art works they then ate the brushes.
 
Ive always wanted a animal painted painting, i've tried it with my dogs actually ( Koda has too much pride, but Benji is starting to hold onto the paint brush). They are beautiful
 
Paignton gorilla 'N'Dowe' produced some paintings last year which were sold on eBay for the EAZA campaign. He solved the paintbrush problem by using his fingers. The zoo said it was a one-off experiment, unlikely to be repeated. At the same time, gorilla 'Kumbuka' "made" some walking sticks (with his teeth) for the campaign.

I didn't see it, but I heard that the orangutans were recently given some chalks and did a bit of scribbling in the show den.
 
It's interesting that I just happened to stumble on this topic as I am going for a behind-the-scenes "experience" with the elephants at the Cincinnati Zoo tomorrow where I will receive a custom painting produced by one of the cows. The Cincinnati also offers paintings done by their Indian, black, and Sumatran rhinoceroses, and in the gift shop they sell various sizes of red panda paw print paintings that are cheaper.
 
The Phoenix Zoo used to have a painting elephant named Ruby. The current 3 elephants, however, only make their own Gatorade. They do, however, have a painting Ocelot named Padfoot. I think it'd be kind of cool to have a painting by an animal, but they're often rather expensive.
 
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