Encyclopedia of animal rights and animal 251

208 | Enrichment and Well-Being for Zoo Animals identifying and providing key environmental stimuli Well-being is a notoriously slippery concept that is difficult to define and measure, but it generally includes good health and biological functioning, the ability to maintain physiological homeostasis, and—the most difficult to measure—good psychological health Early in the 20th century, zoo professionals were the first to express concern about what today would be called psychological well-being, noting that animal behavior in zoos often seemed abnormal compared with that observed in the wild The practice of enrichment to address these problems started in zoos and later spread to more intensively managed captive settings, such as farming and animal laboratories Largely due to public concern for animal welfare in all these settings, governments began to legislate minimum standards for animals held in captivity, many of which involve enrichment In comparison with the wild, captive environments are often unchanging, that is, lacking novelty, spatially limited, stimulus-poor or lacking in complexity, and generally provide the inhabitant with little control over its environment The result is animals with a great deal of time with nothing to Without opportunities to engage in species-typical natural behaviors, many animals show signs of poor wellbeing, such as stereotypy— highly repetitive behaviors, invariant in form, with no obvious function Pacing is the stereotypy most frequently seen in many mammal species witness cheetahs sprinting after mechanical rabbits, monkeys sifting through piles of straw for food tidbits, or a bear endeavoring to extract peanut butter from crevices in a log Other forms of enrichment not necessarily involve food rewards, relying instead on the animal’s natural curiosity to explore novel and interesting changes in their environment Something as simple as a burlap bag stuffed with straw can keep a giant panda entertained for hours But successful enrichment strategies involve much more than tossing a random mix of interesting items into an animal’s enclosure Types of enrichment have taken many different forms in the literature In one prevalent schematic, enrichment may be divided into five categories: Occupational enrichments are those efforts that try to keep the animal busy, for example, encouraging the animal to work for food or providing some sort of exercise equipment Types of Enrichment Physical enrichment attempts to improve the quality of the enclosure through permanent changes or temporary introduction of novel objects The enclosure may be enlarged or made more complex, and climbing structures, water pools, soft substrate, or vegetation may be added In one of the most highly visible types of enrichment, animals are given novel toys that encourage exploration and play, which in addition to providing psychological benefits to the animal are sure to entertain the zoogoing public Visitors to zoos are likely to see enrichment in action when, for example, they Sensory enrichment can be similar to novel object enrichment, but the