Enrichment is one of the most exciting and fulfilling aspects of animal husbandry. It’s also very important for the health and happiness of the animals in human care. Enrichment is defined by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) Behavioral Advisory Group as “A process for improving or enhancing animal environments and care within the context of their inhabitants’ behavioral biology and natural history.
It is a dynamic process in which changes to structures and husbandry practices are made with the goal of increasing behavioral choices available to animals and drawing out their species-appropriate behaviors and abilities, thus enhancing animal welfare.”
This can look so many different ways for so many different animals, but I’m excited to walk you through some enrichment for our fishy friends at Discovery World. There are five main categories for enrichment: environmental, sensory, food, social, and manipulative.
Environmental enrichment
This is anything we do to change up the surroundings of an animal. For our fish, this can be changes we make to light, salinity, temperature, or water quality. An example would be adding an air bubbler to an exhibit that doesn’t already have one. The fish are often curious and will come over to check it out.
Image by Dani Jensen
Sensory enrichment
This has to do with the animal’s hearing, taste, touch, etc. For our fish, we can play underwater music for them or put in some Astroturf to rub against, or flavor their food items. Many of our fish love the taste of garlic and it’s actually good for them.
Garlic is a natural appetite stimulant for our fishy friends and it’s also anti-bacterial and anti-fungal. Another fun and safe form of visual enrichment is to let our fish watch TV. We have quite a few fish who are always interested in watching videos we show them on a laptop screen.
Image by Dani Jenson
Food enrichment
This is when we feed foods that we wouldn’t normally feed, but the novel foods are of course non-toxic and safe for the animal to consume. We can order a food type we haven’t tried before, or add some novel fruits/veggies to their diet, and if they end up loving it then we can incorporate it more often.
One of our exhibits went crazy when we fed them frozen peas for the first time. We can also put our everyday food items in some plain gelatin to make food a little different and interesting.
Image by Dani Jensen
Social enrichment
This is any time we make a change to the exhibit population or allow an animal to interact with another individual that they may not have ever seen before. Social enrichment requires a lot of forethought and safety precautions.
Introducing animals is usually a very slow process, but we can do things like let our turtles roam around at the base of an aquatic exhibit and watch the fish.
The fish and the turtle get to see each other and interact, but it’s perfectly safe for both parties with no chance of exchanging germs or harming each other. Something as simple as adding new fish to an exhibit would also count as social enrichment.
Image by Dani Jensen
Manipulative enrichment
This is a fancy way of saying toys, and it’s probably the most exciting form of animal enrichment. All the dog toys and cat toys you have at home for your beloved pets are considered manipulative enrichment. Our fish will play with toys too!
We give rubber kongs to our round stingrays so they have to work a little harder to get their food. Our cownose ray likes to swim through and move dive rings around her tank. It’s also fun to put our turtle’s food into food toys such as floating Wiffle balls.
Enrichment is a common practice at most zoos and aquariums, it is even required for some species. You can practice enrichment at home with your pets, as well as keep an eye out for it when you are visiting zoological facilities.
