What happens when you give a rhino high-tech toys?
Boone, a 3,000-pound black rhino, stares down a spherical feeding device that was placed in his enclosure overnight. It does not make any sudden movements, but Boone’s guard is up as he circles the intruder. Although Boone could easily destroy this device if he ran at it head on, he exercises caution when first encountering it. The object looks similar to other 50-pound balls Boone dribbles around his pen, but this one has been covered in molasses and filled with Boone’s favorite treat: apples. This is Boone’s first training session with the Foobler, a state of the art puzzle feeding device designed to stimulate an animal’s natural hunting and foraging instincts within their environment.
The behavioral interactions between Boone and his rhino-sized, Foobler have revealed exciting results. At the 2016 Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) conference, Dr. Jason Watters and Bethany Krebs of the San Francisco Zoo’s Behavioral Wellness team presented their findings. Overall the Foobler had a positive impact on Boone’s behavior by reducing the amount of anticipatory walking he displayed during meal times. Rather than pacing the path which leads to his barn at the end of the day, Boone spent his days sunning himself in the enclosure. Behavioral researchers highlighted that when Boone had access to the Foobler he was less inclined to spend his afternoons pacing in anticipation for his evening meal.
In the wild, black rhinos exhibit foraging behaviors where they are constantly interacting with different parts of their environment to find new food sources. However, within the confines of a zoo enclosure, this instinctual behavior can dull over time as the animal begins to associate certain times of day with routine feeding. The use of animal enrichment in zoos is not a new practice. Crowdfunding a high-tech engineering project to stimulate a captive rhino’s natural behavior is a story unique to Experiment and the San Francisco Zoo.
At Experiment we believe that anyone can be a scientist, and a lot of our work is dedicated to making this possible. We get excited by scientific discoveries that wouldn’t have happened otherwise — happy accidents, risks or chances that 99% of people wouldn’t take.
“Before we began our crowdfunding campaign to build and study the Rhino Foobler we had a hunch. We thought you were out there. By you, we mean people that are interested in the processes of science, that care for animals and the natural world…Over time, our hunch evolved into a hypothesis. We thought, IF there are enough people interested in the type of work we are doing, and we can communicate with them, THEN we should be able to bring them together into a single network that will act to support our work,” said Wellness and Animal Behavior Coordinator Bethany Krebs.
Over the course of a month and a half, the rhino Foobler project raised over $15,000 on Experiment, from 175 dedicated backers.
“In the past 45 days, we have gathered data in support of this hypothesis. Your actions are our data and we are happy to say that this hypothesis is confirmed. We haven’t run any fancy statistics or developed any neat graphs but we now know you are there. We also know that you are willing to act. You raised $15,000…Some of you donated, came back and donated more, then did it a third time to ensure we made our goal. It’s all of these actions, not just the 15,000 tangible ones that you took that we find so encouraging,” said Krebs.
