Blackpool Zoo

Visiting the zoo is a past time I have fond memories of from my childhood, but it's been years since I've actually visited one. I love seeing all the animals (although I do have issues with enclosure sizes) and what's better than getting a bit of VIP treatment when you go with university? Yes, you heard right! As part of the equine behaviour module, my class went to Blackpool Zoo this week.

One of the giraffes from the zoo, as you may have seen on Instagram
(@equiholly.blog)

Part of the module involves providing some form of enrichment for one of the college horses. In order to better appreciate the aims and objectives of enrichment, we went to Blackpool because they're in the process of building a new elephant enclosure, in the hopes that the elephant they have will take to a new herd. Kate is currently the only elephant, so enrichment is really important to keep her stimulated and happy.

This isn't something restricted to Blackpool by any means. Anyone who has seen any sort of TV show relating to zoos has probably seen some sort of enrichment activity. You can probably find clips from Chester's "The Secret Life of the Zoo" and similar programmes which show treats being put in balls for the animals to play with etc. Enrichment activities encourage the animals to think, as well as allowing them to use a greater repertoire of their inherent natural behaviour.

Can we take a moment to appreciate how cute penguins are? ♥

My fellow classmates and I received a talk from one of the keepers at the zoo, who explained that the main purpose of enrichment is to prevent abnormal behaviours. If we think back to horses for a minute, crib biting and weaving would be an example of this. For zoo animals, wall-licking and pacing are common stereotypical behaviours that the keepers try to prevent. This isn't an easy thing to do. The keeper told us about a zoo where the elephant kept nodding its head. That zoo responded by giving the elephant food to try and get it to stop, but of course the elephant then associated nodding its head with food, so ended up doing it constantly! As Blackpool use positive reinforcement across the board, they have to be careful to ensure they only reward the good behaviour and ignore the bad. 

Enrichment isn't just about treats for the animals though. It consists of nearly every aspect, from feeding and training to safe handling for vet checks; it's both mental and physical stimulation. Kate, for example, has lots of branches in her enclosure which she has to break up herself to eat, and there are hay nets in some rocks beyond one of the barriers. This is to encourage her to use all the muscles in her trunk, as some captive elephants only use a small proportion of the muscles in their trunk, which results in what the keeper called "lazy trunk" (this is the term used at Blackpool Zoo, but if anyone knows the actual term I'd love to know!). 

Kate has been trained to lift her feet up so that she can
have a pedicure! This helps keep her sound.

Something I found really interesting was the reasoning behind the displays for the sea lions. Blackpool does have shows with their sea lions, some of which does involve them jumping through hoops. Turns out that this is actually to encourage natural behaviour. In the wild, sea lions are a bit like dolphins in that they do that porpoising action. They do it so they can maintain a fast pace, breaching the water to breathe before going back under. In captivity, this isn't necessary as they can hold their breath in order to swim from one side of the pool to the other, so the trainers introduce hoops to encourage more natural behaviour. As training is part of enrichment any way, if you can teach an animal to exhibit more natural behaviours then it is definitely worth it - especially as they start to do it in their day to day lives. We saw the sea lions porpoising frequently of their own accord as they swam together around the pool.

So how can all of this be applied to horses? Well, for my module in particular we are looking to create an enrichment activity that will encourage whichever horse we have to display some new behaviours. This might be something as simple as using more of the stable or going some way to reducing stereotypical behaviours (we have one horse which crib bites and wind sucks constantly), but it might even stimulate the horse mentally if it has to work something else. For day to day life, however, it definitely makes us question the quality for the life of horses who are nearly always kept inside, and what can be done to improve the time they are in the box. One of my lecturers recently talked about how for horses on box rest, sometimes they will take a square of turf into the stable. The horse grazes naturally, and can then have a bit of fun with the soil if it so chooses. 

Likit's Snak-a-Ball is an example of an equine enrichment activity.
Photo courtesy of Likit 

If you have a specific enrichment activity for your horse, or any other animal really, I would love to know about it! Maybe you even have a video of your horse using a product like the one from Likit shown above? You can get in touch using the social media icons in the sidebar. Make sure you go check out Blackpool Zoo on social media as well, and if you get a chance definitely go and visit. Don't be afraid to ask questions as all the staff we met were really friendly.

Special thank you to everyone at Blackpool Zoo who answered our questions and talked to us whilst we were there. It was a great day and we learnt a lot about the life of the animals at the zoo, and we came away very, very satisfied. It's not everyday you see an elephant getting a pedicure or find out how good orangutans are at escaping haha!

Until next time~