Environmental Enrichment
Includes structural, behavioral, food, and auditory enrichment.
Brereton, J. E., Myhill, M. N. G., Shora, J. A. 2021. Investigating the effect of enrichment on the behavior of zoo-housed southern ground hornbills. Journal of Zoological and Botanical Gardens 2(4), 600–609.
Enrichment is essential for the welfare of many zoo-housed animals, yet the value of enrichment is not well understood for all taxa. As an intelligent, long-lived species, the southern ground hornbill (Bucorvus leadbeateri) is a...
Bramati, G., Stauffer, P., Nigri, M. et al. 2023. Environmental enrichment improves hippocampus-dependent spatial learning in female C57BL/6 mice in novel IntelliCage sweet reward-based behavioral tests. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 17.
The IntelliCage is an automated home-cage system that allows researchers to investigate the spontaneous behavior and learning abilities of group-housed mice. The IntelliCage enables us to increase the standardization and reproducibility of behavioral outcomes by...
Bohn, L., Bierbaum, L., Kästner, N. et al. 2023. Structural enrichment for laboratory mice: Exploring the effects of novelty and complexity. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 10.
Providing structural enrichment is a widespread refinement method for laboratory rodents and other animals in captivity. So far, animal welfare research has mostly focused on the effect of increased complexity either by accumulating or combining...
Boesch, C. 2020. Mothers, environment, and ontogeny affect cognition. Animal Behavior and Cognition 7(3), 474–489.
The book “Folk Physics for Apes” remains a fascinating book about the way one captive peer-group of chimpanzees understand the world in which they grew. However, the very special living conditions these seven individuals faced...
Bini de Lima, A. C., Sebastião da Fé, V. C., Palermo Hernandes, M. S. et al. 2023. Olfactory stimulation as environmental enrichment for domestic horses—A review. Animals 13(20), 3180
Horses constantly face several challenges inherent to the domestic environment, and it is common for the expression of their natural behavior to be drastically limited. Environmental enrichment has been suggested as an alternative to improve...
Baskir, E., Parsons, A., Elden, M. et al. 2023. Quantifying acute behavioral reactions of Bali mynas (Leucopsar rothschildi) to environmental and progressively challenging enrichment. Journal of Zoological and Botanical Gardens 4(1), 176–190.
Animals use specific behaviors and skills to overcome challenges and access resources. Environmental enrichment is provided to animals in human care to both promote species-appropriate behaviors and reduce undesired behaviors. Feather pecking in birds is...
Babitz, M., Gibson, A., Pratte, J. 2023. Improving animal wellbeing using behavior-based methodologies: A discussion on enrichment and bears under human care. Journal of Zoological and Botanical Gardens 4(1), 256–276.
This communication discusses the Bear Care Group’s “behavior-based” enrichment philosophy, focusing on the importance of enrichment programs built on the knowledge of species’ natural histories, living strategies, and observed daily and seasonal routines. Methods for...
Anderson, M. G., Campbell, A. M., Kuhn, D. D. et al. 2022. Impact of environmental complexity and stocking density on affective states of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Animal Cognition 25(5), 1331–1343.
Environmental condition, such as environmental complexity or stocking density, can directly or indirectly influence animal emotion and ultimately, affective state. Affective states of animals can be assessed through judgement bias tests, evaluating responses to ambiguous...
Alvarez-Hernandez, N., Vallejo-Timarán, D., de Jesús Rodriguez, B. 2023. Adapted original music as an environmental enrichment in an intensive pig production system reduced aggression in weaned pigs during regrouping. Animals 13(23), 3599.
In intensive swine production systems,, the practice of regrouping unfamiliar pigs is common, often leading to aggressive behavior. Although the effect of different musical genres composed for humans has been evaluated in pigs to mitigate...