Creating and Assessing Successful Enrichment Plans

V Hare, B Rich, and R Ingle-Möller

The Shape of Enrichment, Inc., San Diego

California, USA

hare@enrichment.org

Environmental enrichment, as a concept, is now well recognized as an important consideration in the welfare status of any captive animal. Yet, many animal-care professionals remain unaware of the practical considerations important to creating, maintaining, and assessing successful enrichment plans.

The initial portion of this 4-hour workshop will review the basics of devising efficient and effective enrichment plans. Because enrichment is specific to the individual, species, institution, and/or culture, the process of creating and implementing enrichment plans is presented. This process includes: setting behavioral goals; brainstorming possible strategies; testing prototypes; and assessing their effectiveness. Using this process, animal caretakers may create successful enrichment plans for any and all of the animals in their care.

The bulk of the workshop will be dedicated to introducing the attendees to objective, behavior-collection techniques. Both continuous and timed sampling methods will be presented. The curriculum is designed for persons unfamiliar with these techniques who are interested in using more objective methods to ascertain the effectiveness of their specific enrichment plans.