Page 164 - Zoo Animal Learning and Training

136 7 The Art of ‘Active’ Training

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Figure 7.5 The chimpanzees at Maryland Zoo were trained to station with an arm extended away from the
body, which facilitated further husbandry behaviours like taking blood samples. Source: Steve Martin.

approached. Keepers at Columbus Zoo animals taught to participate in voluntary
taught a silvery‐cheeked hornbill (Bycanistes injections, blood draws, ultrasounds, and
brevis) to fly from her cage across the African more, exceed the expectations of most zoo-
exhibit and land on a tree station in the mid- logical professionals.
dle of the exhibit. The keepers at Cheyenne The strategies used to teach these medical
Mountain Zoo used a laser target to teach an and husbandry behaviours vary between each
orangutan (Pongo abelii) to climb to a spe- institution, and even each trainer. However,
cific high point in the exhibit. When the laser there is a growing list of best practices dissemi-
prompt was faded that location in the exhibit nated in publications, conferences, and records
became the station for the termination of the exchanged between institutions with animal
animal’s climbing behaviour and a place transfers, some of which are described below.
where the animal waited for the bridging
stimulus, then returned to the trainer for the 7.4.4 Injection Training
food reinforcer.
As with training any new behaviour, teaching
an animal to participate in injection or blood
7.4.3 Medical and Husbandry draws involves a partnership where the ani-
Behaviours
mal has choice and control. Forcing an ani-
There is no limit to the range and number of mal to accept an injection by squeezing it in a
behaviours animals can learn to perform in chute can destroy trust that took weeks to
zoological facilities. What people could build. By shutting an animal in a restraint
barely imagine only a few years ago is now devise, a keeper takes away an animal’s choice
old news in contemporary zoological set- and control in the situation, which often
tings. There was a time not long ago that reduces an animal’s motivation to participate
people were amazed a primate was trained to in training. Unless the animal’s behaviour of
put its arm in a sleeve and let a veterinarian being closed in the restraint devise is excep-
draw blood. Today, the number and types of tionally well generalised to novel conditions,