Page 150 - Zoo Animal Learning and Training

122 7 The Art of ‘Active’ Training

VetBooks.ir motivation to perform a behaviour will likely 7.2.4 Control
decrease over time. If you received the
Watson found (as cited in Friedman 2005)
same lunch items each day the behaviour of
opening the lunch box will likely decrease control of one’s outcomes to be a primary
reinforcer for behaviour, and loss of control
over time, especially when you have other can punish, or reduce, behaviour. Challenges
alternatives. However, if the reinforcer for that occur when training animals to enter
behaviour varies randomly, the motivation to crates, chutes, and other confined areas are
perform the behaviour will likely increase. If often associated with the animal’s perception
your lunch contains different food items each of a loss of control. By giving animals a higher
day, especially if someone else packed your level of control over their environment
lunch, the behaviour of opening the box to trainers can solve many shifting problems in
discover what is inside might increase. zoological and aquarium settings. For
Varying the type and quantity of reinforcers instance, shifting problems are often associ-
is often key to motivating animals to partici- ated with the consequence of the moving‐
pate in training. inside behaviour being the loss of access to
The benefit of delivering a variety of rein-
forcers is evident in the free‐flight macaws at outside. Locking an animal inside an enclo-
sure can punish future behaviour of coming
Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Three groups of inside. If the consequences of coming inside
20 macaws make two flights each day across results in both a food reinforcer and opening
the park. They are released from their hold- the door for the animal to go back outside,
ing facility, and then fly half a mile past the future behaviour of coming inside is likely to
Tree of Life to a perch on the other side of the increase. However, at some point a keeper
park. Once they are at the designated landing needs to lock the animal inside. In that case,
area, the macaws receive a variety of food after several repetitions of coming in and
items, such as pellets, nuts, and fruits. After a going back out, a trainer can then offer
10 minute interpretive programme the increased quantity of high‐value reinforcers
macaws are cued to return to their holding to offset the possible aversive nature of losing
facility where they make their way into indi- access to outside (Figure 7.2).
vidual cages and receive a mixture of high At Givskud Zoo in Denmark, the keepers
value food items that change with every wanted to teach their chimpanzees (Pan trog-
flight. These food items include pellets, nuts, lodytes) to participate in husbandry and
fruits, vegetables, and even a few healthy medical behaviours in a chute leading from
human food items such as granola bars, the night holding area out to the exhibit. The
crackers, trail mix, etc. After each bird eats chimp’s previous history of being locked in
their food the birds are let out into the large the chute where it was darted and anesthe-
flight pen where a table is spread with addi- tised punished the behaviour of coming
tional fruits, vegetables, and other treats. inside when a keeper was anywhere near the
Additionally, after each flight the trainers shift door. A new plan was designed for
add a wide variety of items ranging from the keepers to give the chimps ‘control’ of the
browse, to hidden treats, to large bins filled door. The trainer started the session by rein-
with chewable objects. These birds perform forcing the dominant female for taking small
these flights twice a day at ad‐lib weight. steps towards the inside of the chute. Each
They choose to come to the holding facility time the animal moved forward the trainer
because the reinforcers inside their facility reinforced the behaviour with the animal’s
out‐compete the myriad of other reinforcers favourite food. The next step involved the
available to them in the park, including trainer and a second keeper giving the animal
unlimited browse, great views, and the ‘the power’, through her body language, to
acorns that some of them learned to eat in control the behaviour of the keeper near the
the trees along the way.