Willie B's Story
ENVIRONMENTAL ENRICHMENT is an effort to give animals in captivity a way to live active and healthy lives. It's difficult to provide animals in captivity with the same kind of tasks found in nature. In the wild animals are challanged physically, socially, and mentally every day. Providing higher environmental enrichment practices can range from very complex artificial fleeing prey devices for lepard or very simple dirt burrows for prairie dogs. A simple arrangement such as a tree stump for bears to scratch their backs on, can provide a more natural habitat for the animals, allowing them to exert some control over their habitat. This can result in healthier, more calm animals that can successfully breed. While environmental enrichment may be helpful, it can never take the place of the animal's natural habitat. However, it can help stop behavior problems common in captive animals. For example, an elephant may rock and swing back and forth for hours. Bears may pace, monkeys stare, and rhinos circle. Both bar-biting and rail-sucking are also common with bears and giraffes. These behavior problems are caused by boredom, loneliness, anger, pressure and habitat deprival.