UC students test wits of zoo animals with enrichment

How do you engage a tiger?

University of Cincinnati students answered the unusual question for an honors class that helped the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden provide behavioral enrichment for its animals.

Teams of UC students were tasked with coming up with puzzle boxes, interactive feeders and other devices that would stimulate curiosity, engagement or activity in the animals.

Students worked with the zoo’s experts to get insights on the personalities and behaviors of the selected animals. And they had a chance to observe the animals in their habitats to inspire their designs. Then they went to the drawing board to come up with ideas.

The project demonstrates UC's commitment to making an impact in Greater Cincinnati as outlined in its strategic plan, Next Lives Here.

The Malayan tigers filled the doorway, first one massive striped head and then another, her sister. Both tigers trotted with purpose to investigate the strange new object next to their artificial pond. It was a white tube with brilliant lights shining through tiny holes in its plastic surface. And it was making noise.

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The tigers circled the tube and pawed at it, first from one end and then the other. One crouched and sniffed, opening her maw to exposing three-inch canines to take in any telltale scents. Unsatisfied, she continued to swipe at the tube until she knocked it down a hill.

The animal care team declared the the enrichment device a success.

The tube contains a speaker from which zoo staff can play animal sounds or Disney soundtracks. And it is dotted with holes exposing colorful light-emitting diodes. And the coup de grace: a core where zookeepers can place enticing scents. The students brought cinnamon, catnip and Calvin Klein’s Obsession cologne.

“Often our partners want something that is a bit outside the box. When you’re dealing with the private sector or other organizations, they’re working on a time clock. There is only so much they can do,” Russell said.

By enlisting the help of enthusiastic university students who see unlimited possibilities, organizations can benefit from original and creative ideas, he said. The teams consist of students from colleges across campus in diverse majors such as communications, biology, design, accounting and aerospace engineering.

“The zoo thought that there was an opportunity here for the university to look at animal enrichment in a multidisciplinary way,” Russell said.

“It would have been possible to make this a capstone project in mechanical engineering. But you wouldn’t have gained the richness of unusual approaches to the problem,” Russell said. “Bringing those different disciplines together is an important part of its success.”

Russell, an architect by training, said the design aspects of the projects especially resonate with him. But students must come up with ideas and mock-ups, draft a budget, order materials and assemble their creations within a prescribed timeline, teaching important project management skills.

UC students Olivia Loparo and Adina Ballaban helped design a browse box for giraffes. The box was made of smooth half-inch Plexiglas with round holes blocked by wiffle balls. To reach the food rewards — leafy foliage, herbivore biscuits or grain — the giraffes have to reach high up and push the balls out of the way with their giant purple tongues to probe the box.

Zoo staff inspected each device and quizzed the team members on the parts and materials to make sure they were safe and nontoxic for the animals. And then they placed the enrichment devices in the exhibits to see what would happen.

UC teams came up with two clever games for the zoo’s beautiful rhinoceros hornbills, turkey-sized birds that inhabit the rainforest canopy in parts of Asia. A puzzle device contained pipes within pipes to hold grapes that would drop into a feeding trough if the birds correctly manipulated strings on either side.

“The birds have to line them up so the food drops into the bottom. So hopefully the birds will figure it out. If they can’t, we can always simplify it,” UC student Justin Meyer said.

The students studied the birds in depth to learn about their abilities and natural behaviors.

“In the wild, they’ll forage or crack open trees to get to food. Since we know the birds are smart, we wanted to challenge them, so we did a food device,” UC student Bradley Davidson said.

The students cheered when the first nervous bird flew over to inspect the device. And then they laughed when the hornbill outsmarted the device by using its long bill to spin the pipes manually through the top feeder slot to pluck out each delicious grape, no strings required.

Another team made a pipe waterfall for the hornbills.

The zoo routinely provides enrichment for its animals. Sometimes, it means hiding food in different places in the exhibit or exposing the animals to unusual scents like peppermint.

“Enrichment is absolutely important to all the animals at the zoo,” said Cody Sowers, a senior aviculturist at the zoo. “We want to keep them mentally and physically stimulated.”

One UC team came up with a faux kelp forest and floating fish feeder for the zoo’s aptly called little penguins. Both are designed to entice the diving birds to stay in the water longer.

“We want the penguins to be in the water as much as possible,” Sowers said. “But for little penguins, it’s a challenge because in a zoo they don’t really need to swim. The food shows up for them.”

Sowers said the UC program is a good fit because it gives students complex problems to solve for the benefit of the zoo’s animals.

“I think it’s fantastic. I’m really stoked. I think it’s such a cool experience for keepers and zoo staff and for the students themselves,” he said.

Giraffe team member Lara Koenick, a student in UC’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, said she loved working on the novel browse box.

“That was one of the best things about being a designer — seeing an idea through to completion and watching it succeed,” she said.