Holiday Enrichment 2000
Twas the morning before
Christmas...
and all through the zoo...
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The African wild dogs and hyenas got special food treats such as raw liver and meaty bones placed in their exhibits. |
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Apollo was the first to discover the "zebra" in the lion exhibit. He licked the chicken and liver juice off the top ...
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... and then went for the kill! |
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Our female tiger, Djelita, was definitely interested in this strange looking "animal" in her exhibit, but it did smell tasty ...
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... so she rolled it around, shook off its little head and ate the goodies on the inside. |
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The gibbons had their stocking stuffed with food. Even baby Emma had a little stocking of her own.
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Everyone enjoyed their own treats and there was no fighting! |
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The ring-tailed lemurs loved their simple treat of flowers and greens.
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Our siamang, Mahina, seemed a little cautious with her stocking but eventually enjoyed the food goodies inside. |
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Left: Rusti, the orangutan, had his exhibit filled with a decorated Christmas tree, a giant snowman and a tunnel made out of an old refrigerator box. After knocking over the tree and the snowman his interest turned to the tunnel. At first he was a little cautious about entering it but he finally crawled in and spent about an hour watching the outside world from this funny perspective. (That's him on the left side of the box.) |
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Top: Our Chimp keeper Greg, hides brightly wrapped presents filled with toys and treats throughout the chimp exhibit. Right: When the chimps come out from their sleeping quarters, it's like watching a band of wild children on "overload" tearing through their gifts. |
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Vaigai and Mari found all sorts of elephant treats inside their packages. What you can't see in this picture is " Merry Christmas Mari and Vaigai" spelled out in elephant dung balls in front of the exhibit! |
It doesn't take elephants very long to go through their gifts, but it sure looked like they were having a good time. Yum, yum, yum! |
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Keepers and staff in their Christmas decorated utility carts escort the TV news crew around to the various enrichment exhibits. |
Frequent enrichment for all captive birds and animals, whether they be in a zoo, a research facility or in your home as pets, is very important for their physical and mental well-being.
The Honolulu Zoo has regularly scheduled year-round enrichment activities for all of its residents.
Thanks for stopping by...
and from all of us at the Honolulu Zoo, to all of you...
HAVE A TERRIFIC NEW YEAR!
(Note: Last year's Christmas
pictures are included with this year's.)
