WORLD> Animals
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WORLD> Animals
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Used tires, beer kegs keep zoo animals healthy
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-03-24 15:41 During a recent cold morning at Boston's Franklin Park Zoo, for example, zookeepers fed their pack of western lowland gorillas by tossing food from the ceiling of the gorillas' enclosed indoor space. The food fell throughout the tropical forest exhibit, forcing Gigi and the other gorillas to search for the food as they would in the wild. Around the corner, zookeepers gave Priscilla the warthog a box packed with sweet potatoes and carrots. Priscilla spent a few minutes tearing up the box to get to the goodies. "It's like opening a Christmas gift," said Jeannine Jackle, assistant curator of the tropical forest exhibit. "It makes it fun." At the Roger Williams Park Zoo, handlers keep George and Grace, a pair of Asian black bears, busy by placing an empty beer keg in their exhibit. The keg's beer smell gets the bears going, as does the deer scent keepers place on the keg. The bears claw and lick the keg for exercise, and heat can be seen from their breaths. "They love it," said Al D'Ercole, a Roger Williams Park keeper. But animal enrichment doesn't simply consist of fun and games. Sometimes, it means distracting them with a toy to administer medical care instead of sedating them. That's how zoo officials at the Franklin Park Zoo handle their 15-year-old "King of the Jungle," Christopher. Charlotte Speakman, a senior keeper, said officials will place a log scented with perfume close enough to the door of the lion's den so that his dangling tail will stick out. Keepers can then inject the lion's tail with medicine or any needed vaccines. After receiving the vaccines, the lion could either stay in his warm indoor room or venture safely outside to rest on his heated rock. Since the field of animal enrichment is so new, zoo officials are still learning and occasionally make mistakes, Linehan said. For example, a few years ago, keepers placed a set of jeans in an exhibit with a snow leopard. The animal loved playing with the jeans so much that it ate them. In the end, the snow leopard was fine save for a few short-term digestive problems. "It is supposed to be fun," Linehan said. "Not a stomachache."
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