May
15

Rootball Enriches Drylands Inhabitants

Posted by in Animal Info,Enrichment,Horticulture,Natural Encounters

Many of our guests are familiar with our enrichment program here at the zoo.  They often watch our animals enjoying novel items or figuring out how to get a treat out of a puzzle feeder.  We give our animals enrichment because it helps keep them mentally challenged and it’s essential to the well being of the animals we care for.

Recently our ace horticulture team saved a  root ball from a tree they had taken out and brought it over to the Natural Encounters building to be given to the animals as enrichment.  The root ball is about four feet across and took five of us to move.  We weren’t sure which exhibit to put it in, but after much deliberation and debate we settled on the Drylands exhibit.  It was an instant hit as you can see from this video.  At first the guinea fowl weren”t sure what to make of this spaceship that landed in their home, but now forage on it regularly.  The antelope ground squirrels moved right in and even the star tortoises enjoy burrowing under it.  The root ball is giving the animals the opportunity to express natural behaviors such as foraging and burrowing, as well as making decisions about whether this new thing should be approached or not.  These types of opportunities are what enrichment is all about.

The root ball will probably be there for a while since it wasn’t the easiest thing to move.  Come by the Drylands exhibit in Natural Encounters and see who’s hanging out on, around or under it!

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