Animal Enrichment
What Is Enrichment?
Enrichment gives animals a creative outlet for physical activity and mental exercise, as well as choice and control over how they spend their time. Examples of enrichment include puzzle feeders that encourage animals to forage for food, climbing structures that enhance habitats, and training sessions where animals can interact with keepers.
Enrichment keeps an animal's day interesting and is just as essential to animal welfare as nutrition and veterinary care.
Types of Enrichment
Habitat
Changing the environment creates a novel experience for animals. Adding trees, vines, and perching areas or using different substrates, such as sand, mulch, or grass can entice animals to navigate their habitats in new ways. Keepers can also provide options for dens and different types of bedding.
Cognitive
Helping animals exercise their minds is as important as giving them space to run, jump and climb. Training sessions and research projects are two types of cognitive enrichment that allow animals to problem-solve, learn and try new activities. Past research has included studies on orangutan memory, how lizards see color, and how giant pandas forage. Training often lets animals participate in their own medical care, like learning to step onto a scale.
Sensory
Scents and sounds encourage animals explore their habitats. Natural predator or prey scents and new smells, such as spices or diluted perfumes, can be sprinkled on the ground or sprayed on a log for an animal to investigate. Playing recorded sounds, like insect activity and bird calls, can simulate the sounds of a habitat in the wild.
Food
Food can be placed in a puzzle feeder, hidden, frozen in ice treats, buried, or scattered throughout an animal's habitat. Making food part of daily enrichment encourages zoo animals to forage and work for their meals, just as their wild counterparts do.
Toys
Toys can include burlap bags, sheets, boomer balls, kongs, chew toys, hammocks and more. Often, toys and food are combined to create new, enriching activities for animals.
Enrichment and Training Stories
Bao Li, Qing Bao and the Secrets of Summer Panda Life at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo ›
How are the new giant pandas spending their first summer? And what’s changed since they arrived nine months ago? Keeper Mariel Lally explains.
How to Train a Binturong for Laser Therapy ›
How do you help a binturong with arthritis? Learn how our animal care team trained Hank to voluntarily participate in his own healthcare.
How Do You Train a Cow for Checkups? ›
Meet our moo-velous cattle: Holstein Magnolia (a.k.a. Maggie) and Hereford Willow! These charming cows are also incredibly intelligent—they have learned medical behaviors that enable our animal care team to closely monitor their health.
How Do You Train a Lemur for Voluntary Radiographs? ›
At Lemur Island, school is always in session for our ring-tailed and black-and-white ruffed residents. Learn how primate keeper Lynne McMahan has trained the lemurs to voluntarily participate in awake radiographs!
How to Care for Wood Thrushes ›
Flutter into how animal keeper Becca Zurlo cares for the iconic wood thrush—the official bird of Washington, D.C.—in the newly renovated Bird House!
Watch Asian Elephant Nhi Linh Play ›
Tune in to the ele-FUN! Watch our 9-year-old Asian elephant, Nhi Linh, play with a weeble-wobble enrichment toy.
How Do You Care for an Aging Lion? ›
As animals age, they have more health care needs. Fortunately, our lions are eager to participate in training that helps us care for them!
Small Enrichment, Big Difference: How to Care for Small Mammals ›
From smart shrews to clever coatis, every animal in Small Mammal House receives enrichment. Learn how the animal care team puts together puzzle feeders, sprinkles spices and comes up with creative elements that ensure animals keep physically active and mentally sharp.