Providing excellent care for animals is much more than just meeting their basic needs. It also includes creating a dynamic environment for the animal through enrichment. In the wild, animals will experience constant changes in their habitat every day. In captivity, these changes are not as frequent. This is where enrichment comes in; it allows the animal to stay stimulated and engaged in their environment.
There are five categories of enrichment:
- Cognitive enrichment creates a mentally stimulating challenge or encourages an animal’s curiosity and exploration.
- Environmental enrichment involves a change to an animal’s habitat, like adding new perches, hides, and décor items.
- Sensory enrichment stimulates an animal’s sense of sight, sound, smell, touch, or taste.
- Food enrichment could be a new food item, high reward treat, or new presentation of food.
- Social enrichment may include care takers handling an animal, or the addition of a mirror or stuffed animal to their habitat.
Empower Their Instincts: Enrichment Wish List
With the Empower Their Instincts: Enrichment Wish List, you can donate items to the Museum’s live animals via Amazon! Your donations will be used to create an active and engaging environment for the animals at Cook Museum of Natural Science.
When making a purchase, please choose the gift option and include your name and email in the gift message section if you would like a thank you card and recognition for your in-kind gift. You can also email that information to animalcare@cookmuseum.org.
For health and safety reasons, the only physical items that will be accepted by the Museum are ones purchased through the list and shipped directly to the Museum.