The Bedford Estates, LondonWhat is enrichment?
Enrichment is an important and essential part of the animals daily lives at Woburn Safari Park. There are many forms of enrichment, such as:
- Foraging and feeding
- Habitat
- Sensory
- Cognitive
- Social/play
The keeper’s regularly introduce new sights, smells, tastes, textures and challenges to encourage the animals to explore their surroundings, with the goal to keep them mentally and physically stimulated.
This can be anything from hiding food around the enclosures, to introducing scents and other objects for animals to explore. The type of enrichment is carefully chosen for each species, based on their natural behaviours and needs.
Seasonal enrichment
Autumn brings plenty of opportunities for keepers to get creative. Pumpkins can be filled with tasty treats or turned into food puzzles, while fallen leaves, branches and other natural materials provide new smells, textures and things to investigate.
It’s a fun change to the animals usual routine and it’s another way to keep curious minds busy and natural behaviours to be encouraged by the expert teams which look after them.
Pick of the pumpkin patch!
There’s been plenty of fun taking place across the Park during this seasonal period, The North American black bears and Asian elephant herd have been smashing and playing with their pumpkin treats meanwhile, on a lighter scale the Capybara duo, Kochi the red panda, meerkats and parrots have been digging into some delicious seasonal snacks!
So, if you spot something a little unusual in an enclosure or out on the reserves this autumn, take a closer look… it could be seasonal enrichment in action!
Want to donate animal enrichment?
The dedicated teams of keepers have put together an excellent range of enrichment items which are available for you to purchase for animals across the Park through the Parks Amazon Wishlist. The item will then be delivered directly to Woburn Safari Park for the animals.