"Discrete trial training (DTT) is an essential strategy for teaching animals to be active partners in their medical and husbandry care. This approach has resulted in extraordinary welfare benefits and is now the standard of care in modern zoos. However, DTT is restricted by the trainers’ decisions. Trainers provide the cue, they set the behavioral criterion, they deliver the reinforcers, and they control the number of repetitions per session. Additionally, DTT occupies a relatively small portion of any zoo animal’s day. After a training session has ended, animals in zoos are typically turned-out into less controlled habitats where trainers have prearranged so-called enrichment opportunities intended to induce active animals who behave similarly to their wild counterparts. However, the goals of environmental enrichment, as suggested by Markowitz (1982), have never been realized. Recently, at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, we have taken a free operant approach to environmental enrichment. With this approach, trainers engineer environments so that animals are free to make any possible operant response and to vary those responses as described by Lindsley (1996). In this presentation we will review several examples of these programs and discuss their relevance to the care of animals in a variety of contexts."

Sponsor:IAABC Foundation
Speaker(s):**Rick Hester, Curator of Behavioral Husbandry

Contact:
 Email: questions@iaabcfoundation.org
 Web: https://iaabcfoundation.org/animal-behavior-conference/