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102 6 Environmental Enrichment: Opportunities for Learning

VetBooks.ir orientated process (Cipreste et al. 2010) in which Animals in a captive
the stimuli provided are regularly changed and
environment
novel stimuli are periodically introduced to the
animals. If not, the animals quickly lose interest
in the environmental enrichment as there is
nothing ‘interesting’ about it for them, unless
the environmental enrichment is associated With environmental Without environmental
with food (Vasconcellos et al. 2012; Hosey et al. enrichment enrichment
2013). A hungry animal will always be inter-
ested in food and most animals will always show
interest in prized food items (i.e. treats) (Bays
2014). This type of enrichment is really playing Natural High learning High Abnormal Low learning Low
on the animal’s need to maintain its body in behaviours opportunities welfare behaviours opportunities welfare
homeostasis; that is, meeting its physiological Figure 6.1 Comparison of the consequences of
requirements. It is for this reason that food enriched or not enriched environments for captive
based environmental enrichment is the most over‐ animals.
used category of enrichment (Young 2003).
Research shows that the animal welfare
benefits from environmental enrichment the process of receiving environmental
come mainly from two sources: (i) the novelty enrichment that animals are constantly being
of the stimuli provided; and (ii) control over presented with learning opportunities
the environment, which environmental (Figure 6.1).
enrichment facilitates (Young 2003). Thus by It is these informal opportunities, which
definition if we are providing animals with we now wish to turn our attention too; it is
novel stimuli then we are creating opportuni- our aim to explain how best these opportuni-
ties for animals to learn about these stimuli, ties can be exploited from an animal learning
which are being presented in their enclosures. and animal welfare perspective.
It is worth highlighting that control over the
environment involves informal animal learn-
ing as well. The public‐shy animal, learns that 6.2 Environmental Enrichment
they may go inside to avoid humans staring at Categories
them; thus, the animal has learnt how to
operate their environment using its behav- Typically environmental enrichment is divided
iour to avoid an aversive situation. up into five non‐mutually exclusive categories
The benefits of environmental enrichment (Shepherdson et al. 1999; Young 2003):
to animal welfare are supported from a wide 1) Social (i.e. social grouping)
body of evidence reviewed by Young (2003), 2) Occupation or cognitive (e.g. opportuni-
which included behavioural to neurological ties for mental or physical exercise)
evidence. The behavioural evidence shows 3) Physical (e.g. the use of species appropri-
improved learning capacity in animals ate furniture in enclosures)
receiving environmental enrichment (Strand 4) Sensory (i.e. stimulation of the five senses)
et al. 2010; Sorensen et al. 2011); the neuro- 5) Nutritional (i.e. the use of food, associ-
logical evidence shows increased dendrite ated or not to devices that enable animals
density, dendrite complexity, and increases to use their anatomical and behavioural
in size areas of the brain such as the amyg- adaptive features in food handling).
dala, which is associated with learning and
memory (Rampon et al. 2000; Van Praag All of these categories of environmental
et al. 2000; Jung and Herms 2014). It is there- enrichment if managed properly can provide
fore with good reason to believe that during informal learning opportunities for animals