Enrichment for Penguins: Is it needed, can it be successful?
by Georgia Podmore
One of an animal keeper’s main tasks during their day is to design and offer enrichment for a variety of species. In my work place we have tried simple enrichment with the Humboldt Penguins, but they all seemed nervous of the objects. So, it has now become normal for enrichment to be overlooked at the facility, as the penguins do not use it anyway. This is not affecting the penguins lives however, as there are no signs of stress in the colony. Rickey Kinley, a Senior Aviculture Keeper at Cincinnati Zoo, also has problems with the penguins not being interested in “playing” with enrichment devices (Yin and Kinley, 2015).
Hunting for fish is a penguin’s enrichment in the natural environment
Focusing on why enrichment may be needed would mean looking at the Humboldt Penguin’s natural behaviours out in the wild. The biggest form of enrichment for a wild penguin would be hunting for fish. This cannot be easily replicated in a captive environment as live fish are not fed to penguins. A lot of zoos also feed penguins by hand to make sure that individuals are getting enough to eat (Ings, Waran and Young, 1997). It can be a difficult task to ensure top physical health for penguins if food is then being put in enrichment, as certain penguins may not be interested and therefore lose condition.
Wild penguins normally spend most of their time swimming in the ocean, but Cincinnati Zoo stated that their penguins spend most of their day on land. The different types of enrichment below look at how these may affect penguin activity and behaviour and hopefully will lead to further development of penguin enrichment ideas.
Photo by Georgia Podmore
What types of enrichment work for penguins in captivity?
Physical Habitat
The enclosure for penguins should guarantee that is has the correct space for the number of penguins, alongside ensuring that it has land and water within it. When looking at enclosure design, keepers need to be thinking about utilising space for enrichment. This may include having areas that the fish can be hidden for the penguins. For most captive penguins their enclosures will meet the requirements set by governing bodies. This ensures that the penguins have a positive environment. A great idea used at RZSS Edinburgh Zoo incorporates floating platforms in the middle of the water as this encourages the penguins to be more active around the enclosure.
Enclosure design is very important for captive penguins
Social
Penguins are extremely social animals, so it is important that they are housed in social groups to ensure that they are stimulated. Most collections holding penguins will generally always have a small group but something that may also develop social enrichment are mixed species exhibits. These exhibits consist of having animals that would naturally encounter each other in the wild, which then creates enrichment through species interaction. There is not a lot of examples of this being done with penguins, however it may be something that could be researched further to look at whether it may benefit activity. Mirrors are often used as social enrichment for horses that are stabled alone and have been proven to reduce stress. Mirrors could be added under the surface of the water as this may encourage more swimming activity.
Food
Food based enrichment is the most used method of enrichment and is generally used to prolong feeding times of animals. As previously mentioned most captive penguins will be hand fed to ensure that they are all getting enough fish per day. Cincinnati zoo used hamster balls in the water that had fish inside them, as this would encourage the penguins to spend longer swimming while also enabling them to use their hunting skills. This was not a simple task though as keepers stated that the penguins were initially nervous of the hamster balls, so they had to be slowly trained to positively associate the balls with food (Yin and Kinley, 2015). This took over 15 weeks but shows that if animal keepers take the time to slowly introduce enrichment devices, the penguins will become adapted and start to use enrichment.
Cognitive
Novel objects such as boomer balls and tyres are classed as cognitive enrichment, with the main aim of enhancing the animal’s mental stimulation (Puppe et al., 2007). The hamster balls used by Cincinnati Zoo can be used as an example of cognitive enrichment. As mentioned, penguins can be quite nervous around novel objects so this is something that may need to be slowly introduced. This is also a reason why you may not see many novel objects in a penguin enclosure.
Sensory
Sensory enrichment can focus on any of the five senses. This is a type of enrichment that can be used successfully for penguins and should be promoted more within the captive environments. RZSS Edinburgh Zoo discussed the success of a bubble machine for their 130 penguins stating that “All three of our penguin species loved playing with the bubbles” (Edinburgh Zoo, 2018).
There is a lack of sources online that discuss penguin enrichment. Although it is obvious that enriching penguins can be difficult, and some may not feel that it is necessary. The bubble machine popularity at RZSS Edinburgh Zoo gives an example of enrichment that is increasing mental stimulation in captive penguins. With further practise and study more enrichment ideas may then also be found, and this will enable captive penguins to thrive (Lindley, 2004). Enrichment should be given to any animal whether it is showing signs of stress or not, as the main aim should always be to keep trying to improve captive animal welfare. Zoos across the world need to be publishing images of their trials with enrichment to communicate and be able to develop enrichment for penguins.
Natural environment vs zoos; a difference and something to try to match. What did you find out in this blog? We love bringing you this type of information, but also can’t do it without your help. Please consider donating to Penguins International so we can continue to keep you informed.
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Reference List:
Edinburgh Zoo. (2018). Unbelieva-bubble penguin enrichment at RZSS Edinburgh Zoo | Edinburgh Zoo. [online] Available at: https://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/news/article/13881/unbelieva-bubble-penguin-enrichment/ [Accessed 27 Aug. 2019].
Ings, R., Waran, N. and Young, R. (1997). Attitude of zoo visitors to the idea of feeding live prey to zoo animals. Zoo Biology, 16(4), pp.343-347.
Lindley, A. (2004). Environmental Enrichment for Captive Animals. The Veterinary Journal, 168(2), p.173.
Puppe, B., Ernst, K., Schön, P. and Manteuffel, G. (2007). Cognitive enrichment affects behavioural reactivity in domestic pigs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 105(1-3), pp.75-86.
Yin, D. and Kinley, R. (2015). Cincinnati Zoo Penguin Training. [online] Available at: https://drsophiayin.com/blog/entry/cincinnati-zoo-penguin-training1/ [Accessed 27 Aug. 2019].
