Animal Enrichment!

We use the term enrichment to describe a variety of pre-planned initiatives that encourage our animals to engage in natural behaviours and we break this down into five basic categories: food based, sensory, cognitive, social and physical habitat.

Some types of enrichment can be less easy to spot than others.

For example, the presence of toys and bright-coloured items may be more obvious than the presence of species appropriate social groupings, or scent-based enrichments.

This weekend, you may notice special celebratory toys in our exhibits, but we also encourage you to look for some less noticeable forms of enrichment!



• Food based: food presented in a variety of different ways to encourage problem-solving, foraging, stalking or hunting behaviours.
• Sensory: sensory initiatives that encourage animals to use their sense of smell, touch, hearing, vision and taste.
• Cognitive: objects that can be manipulated by an animal to promote mental stimulation and problem-solving as well as training routines which encourage animals to voluntarily participate in their medical care or activities outside of their exhibits.
• Social: the presence of species appropriate social groupings to ensure social animals have the ability to explore natural feeding, grooming, territorial, courtship and play-based behaviors. 
• Physical Habitat: the complexity of habitat design to encourage a variety of species-specific behaviours or movements such as reaching, sliding, hanging, swimming, swinging, denning, flying, digging, hiding and nesting among many others.