Watch our Asiatic lions in action as ZSL's Jim Mackie explains the importance of environmental enrichment.
What is enrichment and why is it important for our lions?
Environmental or behavioural enrichment is a term we use in zoos to describe the work we do in an animal’s environment that improves their well-being and promotes natural behaviours.
Our keepers spend a lot of time coming up with new enrichment activities. At ZSL our enrichment has specific goals such as climbing or jumping, or increasing the amount of time an animal forages for food, which is really important for our animals, including our Asiatic lions Bhanu, Rubi, Heidi and Indi.
Enrichment items like the blue buoys increase our lions' activity, and as you can see from the video, they enjoyed investigating the new items in their habitat and interacting with them in a playful manner. The lions like items they can sink their teeth into and destroy, so the blue buoys are perfect!
- Discover more about our Asiatic lions and how to tell our girls apart
- Find out how ZSL is working to protect Asiatic lions in the wild
- Learn more about enrichment and training
Liontrust, the specialist fund management company, are proud supporters of our Asiatic Lions.
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Our people are our greatest asset and we realise our vision for a world where wildlife thrives through their ideas, skills and passion. An inspired, informed and empowered community of people work, study and volunteer together at ZSL.
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