Impact of Behavioral Opportunities on Aardvark Welfare
Aardvarks (Orycteropus afer) are semi-fossorial, nocturnal, and understudied due to their cryptic behavior. The limited amount of time that animal care staff members could view active aardvarks before they head home for the day led to a monitoring effort to see how the aardvarks used their space. This initial monitoring highlighted a relationship between the aardvarks’ amount of time manipulating or sniffing aspects of their environment and positive welfare indicators. To further understand these findings, we systematically offered the aardvarks seven different enrichment items designed to promote one of two enrichment goals: foraging or exploring the habitat. Using overnight video, we were able to observe the four aardvarks housed at the Detroit Zoo and how they interacted with the enrichment provided. All the enrichment items selected were shown to increase the time spent on the goal behavior. In addition, while foraging items were used the most overall, there were temporal niches for each type of enrichment. Foraging enrichment was used more than exploring enrichment when initially given, but exploring enrichment was used more than foraging enrichment in the early morning hours. An understanding of how and when the aardvarks use their enrichment allows animal care staff members to structure enrichment and their own schedules to best meet the aardvarks’ needs.