VOLUME 11, ISSUE 9      DECEMBER 2009
Animal Enrichment with a Holiday Twist
By Elizabeth Arbaugh, Enrichment Programs Manager
I know that many of you had the opportunity recently to see our animals enjoying pumpkins, corn stalks, ghoulish red spaghetti and spooky spider-shaped piñatas. Our Halloween themed enrichment day is a tradition we have followed for many years. This year it was a beautiful fall day and our visitors and animals clearly enjoyed their treats.

Most of the treats are Zoo Boo leftovers. When that event winds down for the season various staff members including keepers, landscapers, event planners and volunteers work together to gather up truckloads of Zoo Boo remains and distribute them to the animals.

We certainly do not hand out the leftover candy, but instead use the yummy seasonal delights such as pumpkins of all shapes and sizes, cornstalks and gourds. The animals investigate, smell, touch, eat, climb on, make beds in them, push, smash and play with these wonderfully enriching items!

This year, our gorillas savored hollowed-out pumpkins stuffed with red colored spaghetti and the wolverines destroyed a spooky spider piñata filled with yummy meat. The zebras, rhinos and bison enjoyed pushing around and smashing pumpkins. All in all it was very enriching for animals and humans.

The enrichment program as a whole has a long standing history of recycling a wide variety of items that might typically be thrown away. Leftover seasonal items such as pumpkins and holiday trees are donated from local businesses and provide enrichment opportunities for many, many animals.

This does not just happen on occasion throughout the year but rather on a daily basis. We recycle lots of other items for use in our enrichment program. We build climbing structures and heavy duty toys from donated fire-hose. Scraps of PVC pipe are creatively made into puzzle feeders and plastic containers of all sizes are used to make ice treats. Cardboard boxes, bags and tubes of all shapes and sizes are donated daily and made into wonderful treats providing opportunities for animals to forage and pounce and tear apart.

Thanks to the generosity of our community as well as our volunteers, the enrichment program and the animals make great use of items that might otherwise go into the trash!