Environmental enrichment

Environmental enrichment is a key factor in captive animals’ welfare. What’s exactly environmental enrichment? It’s the process of introducing several stimuli to the habitat of the captive animal to improve their welfare!

In captivity, the animals don’t have access to the same stimuli as if they were in the wild. For that reason, it is imperative to do whatever it takes to make their habitat the most comfortable and stimulating as possible.

Birds are a group that has not received much attention in this subject yet, and that’s why it’s so important for us to understand this group’s needs and why environmental enrichment matters to them.

Without environmental enrichment, a lot of birds may start to develop signs of stress which is a poor welfare indicator being reflected, for example, in behaviors of plucking their own feathers or the feathers of another individual (as a result, some birds may end with almost no feathers). Furthermore, animals tend to perform repetitive behaviors with no apparent explanation (such as walking from one side to the other- pacing- as if they were impatient).

To avoid this, there are some enrichment methods we can try to follow. First, if we’re dealing with a social species, in other words, species that live in groups or pairs in nature, it’s important that in captivity they also have company. This is called social enrichment, and in many cases, it’s enough to reduce stress.

Food puzzles can also be applied in the captive bird environment, which are basically objects that have to be manipulated to obtain the food reward-nutritional enrichment, also known as foraging. In birds, this type of enrichment is particularly important since food is the best type of motivation to get the birds to interact with the items. Thus, by being busy with the items they have less free time available to develop stressful behaviors.

For example, paper rolls filled with food can be offered (birds have to destroy the paper to reach the reward), food hanging by a thread, making access more difficult (for parrots, for example, hanging fruit in the habitat), cardboard boxes with grass and seeds (to induce food demand), among others. The objective is to increase the bird's foraging time or in other words increase the consumption time of the food.

The other types of existing enrichment are occupational (items that induce manipulation by the animal without food reward) and sensorial (used to explore

the animals' senses, such as smell, vision, etc.). Occupational items can be especially important for parrots, who need to trim their continuously growing beak. In this case, the items (such as ropes, pieces of wood, toys) are destroyed with the birds' beak, trimming their beak and at the same time entertains them with this task.

Birds, unlike mammals, cannot express their hidden feelings so well. We can more easily see that a dog is not doing well than a bird. For this reason, it is important to pay attention to all the signals they give us: are they over-grooming (plucking the feathers)? Are they more aggressive? Are they pacing? If so, environmental enrichment can be the solution. However, enrichment does not only appear as a solution but mainly as prevention. All animals in captivity must have access to an adequate habitat with enrichment stimuli, to improve their quality of life and reduce stress.

References

Greggor, A. L., Vicino, G. A., Swaisgood, R. R., Fidgett, A., Brenner, D., Kinney, M. E., … Lamberski, N. (2018). Animal welfare in conservation breeding: Applications and challenges. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 5(NOV). https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2018.00323

Kalmar, I. D., Janssens, G. P. J., & Moons, C. P. H. (2010). Guidelines and ethical considerations for housing and management of psittacine birds used in research. ILAR Journal, 51(4), 409–423. https://doi.org/10.1093/ilar.51.4.409

Meehan, C. L., & Mench, J. A. (2007). The challenge of challenge: Can problem solving opportunities enhance animal welfare? Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 102(3–4), 246–261. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2006.05.031

Swaisgood, R., & Shepherdson, D. (2006). STEREOTYPIC ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR Fundamentals and Applications to Welfare (G. Mason & J. Rushen, eds.).

Young, R. J. (2003). Environmental Enrichment for Captive Animals. In

Environmental Enrichment for Captive Animals. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470751046