An extremely important part of the job of the CMNH wildlife specialists is to provide the animals living in the Perkins Wildlife Center with environmental and behavioral enrichment. Enrichment is any stimulus that captures an animal's interest and encourages healthy mental and physical activity. Enrichment comes in many forms, including (but certainly not limited to) scents, toys, novel items, training programs, varied feeding schedules, social interaction with humans and other animals, sounds, rearrangement of living spaces, and puzzles.
The wildlife staff strives to deliver engaging and effective enrichment to the animals on a daily basis. On a typical day, for instance, I may feed the otters their fish frozen inside of large ice blocks, give the raccoons food that has been hidden inside of boxes they must manipulate and open, train the bobcats to leap from platform to platfrom in their exhibit, play recordings of songbird vocalizations for the peregrine falcons, give an opossum-scented blanket to a fox, place a mirror inside of the crow enclosure, and fill a snake's tank with a novel substrate such as sand or shredded paper. The possibilities are numerous and the staff enjoys developing creative stimuli for our wildlife collection.
The primary goals of enrichment are to keep the animals mentally stimulated, encourage natural behaviors, increase physical activity, prevent neural disorders, and improve the overall quality of life of each individual.
Earlier today I took a short video of an example of enrichment for this blog. I presented Huxley the red fox with a phone book with some of his diet hidden inside. My goal was to encourage him to use his excellent sense of smell to detect the food, and also to encourage natural species-specific behaviors for a fox such as digging and tearing. Check out the video to see whether or not I was successful!
Michelle Leighty, CMNH Wildlife Specialist
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