无码动画

Animal Science students from 无码动画 have enjoyed an enriching day helping boost the welfare of capuchin monkeys at a Staffordshire wildlife centre.

Senior lecturer in Animal Behaviour and Welfare, Dr Ellen Williams, explained more about what the students did at Gentleshaw Wildlife Centre in Eccleshall – and how their work helped the centre’s monkeys – in a recent .

She said: “As part of the curriculum we try to embed as many 'real-life' opportunities as possible and this week we were looking at enrichment for zoo animals, thinking about what goal-based enrichment looks like and how we should test the efficacy of that.

“Enrichment is imperative for animal welfare - but also can be difficult because it takes time to make it, it costs money to make it and then it takes time to measure the efficacy. Gentleshaw have been working closely with Team Building with BITE, who generously donated some fab enrichment for the capuchin monkeys to use.

“My students had the opportunity to help prep this enrichment - it turns out mashed potato is a real favourite - and then to watch how well it was used! They absolutely loved it, and as you can see from these photos it encouraged lots of great foraging opportunities for the monkeys.

“We also got to go into Gentleshaw's enrichment cupboard! Ooo it was like Narnia! And we had a great talk from Jenny about their enrichment schedules and how they cycle through across the animals to ensure they don't get bored and remain stimulated by what they are offered.

“Such a fabulous experience for the students and also a great opportunity to be able to support the zoo by collecting some lengthy data on which animals were engaging with the enrichment and the behaviours it was encouraging.

“It's great to be able to have these partnerships with facilities - and I am always grateful for the support of Jenny and the other collections I work with!”