At the Houston Zoo there is a wide variety of animals. The McGovern Children’s Zoo houses many different species, so the keepers are kept on their toes striving to provide interesting and varied enrichment for all their animals. Here is an example of one way their enrich the lives of the raccoons that live at the Children’s Zoo.
For the clever raccoon, getting your food presented to you in a bowl everyday can be a bit mundane. In the wild they would be climbing trees, digging, and wading in the water to get their next meal. They are what I like to call “opportunivores” – taking advantage of food sources wherever they can find them. To create a little variety and to stimulate natural foraging behaviors, we recently took a small stump and drilled raccoon hand sized holes along the top and sides and then dropped their daily diet into the holes. When we gave the girls the stump they dove right in, enthusiastically digging out their favorite tidbits of food. Even after all of the food has been found, they will still search and scratch at the holes just to be sure they didn’t leave anything behind.
What kind of food do we put in the holes you might ask? Raccoons are omnivores – they will eat anything from insects, to plant matter, to the occasional egg snatched from a nest, so we have a wide variety of choices to put in their “puzzle feeder”. It is very rewarding as a keeper to give our animals experiences that mirror their natural wild behaviors.
The next time you come and visit the raccoons, take a peak at their exhibit to see what new ways we enriching our clever masked mammals.
Written by Stephanie Turner
Enrichment Day at the Houston Zoo is Saturday, September 24th. This is a great opportunity to come and join in the fun. Come out and see all of the animals enjoying special enrichment, hear keeper chats and loads of fun games for kids of all ages! Enrichment Day celebrates the meaning and joy of enriching our animals and visitors!
Find your favorite animals and see what they’re wishing for at Amazon.com. Then just sit back, shop, click and send your animal of choice a wonderful gift to enrich their life! They really do appreciate it and so does the Houston Zoo!
