Educating the Zoo-going Public: Using Nonhuman-animal Enrichment to Engage and Educate the Public

Talia C. Buchman*
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, 26506

Presentation Category: Social & Behavioral Sciences (Poster presentation)

Student’s Major: Anthropology

Zoos use enrichment to add variety to nonhuman-animals’ lives and encourage interaction with their surrounding(s). The design of new enrichment focuses on maintaining nonhuman-animal safety while encouraging natural behaviors. Enrichment can range from physical objects to scents to visual stimuli. The qualifying feature of enrichment is that it must cause the nonhuman-animals to interact or react. As much as enrichment items are designed to spur reactions from nonhuman-animals, these items also encourage the public to interact with zoo exhibits. This study uses autoethnographic and zoological methods to examine the effect of enrichment on both humans (the zoo-going public) and nonhuman animals under human care. There is a knowledge gap among the zoo-going public. However, educating the public has become increasingly challenging because of the commodification of zoo attendance and a resulting expectation of entertainment. This study explores enrichment targeted on nonhuman-animal(s) as a convenient way of meeting the demand for entertainment while also engaging and educating the public. This study argues enrichment improves the lives of non-human animals’ under human care and contributes to reducing the knowledge gap among the zoo-going public.

Funding: WVU Honors College, Honors EXCEL Program

Program/mechanism supporting research/creative efforts: Honors EXCEL Program