Volunteer's Diary: enrichment and natural behaviour
enrichment and natural behaviour
By Mark Rusli
http://matahari-bears.tumblr.com/
I think one of the most distinctive traits about the sun bears have to be their abnormally long tongues - I wasn’t aware of this till I arrived at the centre, and we’ve had lots of uncertainties, trying to figure out the various reasons why they own one in that length!
We know for a fact that the bears definitely use their tongues to probe for honey in bee hives. All other potential applications aside, we’ve been trying to figure out various enrichment methods to keep the bears busy using both their tongues and claws.
For this enrichment, we split a hole along one side of a short piece of bamboo, smeared blueberry jam within its walls, then tied it outside the den of the young females. It was impossible to break the bamboo this way, so they could only utilize their claws and tongues to get to the jam.
Cerah showing you how it’s done.
It’s easy to assume that enrichments are mere playthings for the bears, like how people baby and spoil their domestic pets with the most elaborate toys. Anyone could do that, you say. Sure, anyone could construct an enrichment, but whether it effectively stimulates and entertains the animal is a different thing altogether. Bears spend more than half their daily lives foraging. In captivity we automatically take this behaviour away with scheduled feeding sessions. It’s this void we have to fill: with all the spare time, and no real need to forage, they start inventing ways to entertain themselves. We classify them as stereotypic behaviour.
A good enrichment does not just entertain. It has to enable the bears to optimally utilize their natural skills, whether it be fishing or climbing - or in this case, licking.
Monday, June 7th 2010 11:51pm
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You don’t need complicated devices which take a nuclear scientist to formulate: the best enrichments are simple and straightforward, yet effective. It’s amazing what you can do with a piece of rope and an old, used 20kg dog biscuit bag. Placed some pieces of fruit in the centre, wrapped it up, and voila! Christmas came early for Suria this year. She loves these empty bags which still hold lingering scents of meat, taking her time to tear it up. I think she’s expecting bigger presents the next time.
