What is environmental enrichment?
On an instinctive level, environmental enrichment is something that improves the quality of a captive animal’s life. But more specifically, environmental enrichment increases the behavioral options available to the captive animal and draws out species appropriate behavior by:
- Increasing behavioral diversity
- Reducing the frequency of abnormal behaviors
- Increasing the range of normal, “wild” behaviors
- Increasing the positive utilization of the environment
- Increasing the ability to deal with challenges in a more normal way
Experts in the field of environmental and behavioral enrichment study ways to provide captive animals with environmental stimuli to compensate for the absence of a rich and challenging natural habitat.
Training, also referred to as operant conditioning, is often included within a definition of enrichment. Although not a natural behavior, many captive animals seem to enjoy the attention of their keepers/trainers and appear to find these activities enriching. Operant conditioning programs reward behaviors that can improve the quality of the captive animal’s life, training them to allow the handling necessary for examination or the administration of medication, or to be moved to a selected location such as a lockout for safety.
