Recall Training and Socialization across Species at the Pueblo Zoo

Overview:

Recall training and socialization are important to address at zoos for the safety of staff, visitors, and animals. Usually larger, more charismatic animals such as lions are prioritized when it comes to training, but I aimed to extend training to smaller and less charismatic animals. Over the summer of 2021, I created and executed personalized training plans for rainforest birds, De Brazza’s monkeys, meerkats, swift foxes, and prairie dogs. I adapted to their varying experience levels, coordinated with their zookeepers, and assessed the benefit of this project to both the keepers and animals. The goal of this project was to allow the keepers at the Pueblo Zoo to more quickly get eyes on each animal in their collection for welfare checks and potentially bring them in for emergency situations. Throughout the process of this project, I found that that planning, communication, and standardization were key to success.

Results:

Prairie Dogs

I had the most success with the prairie dogs. Anecdotally, both staff and visitors told me they had seen the prairie dogs out more than they had seen them in previous summers. Staff mentioned that they seemed less fearful toward them when they went in for animal care and enclosure maintenance.

I performed behavior observations, specifically observing their alarm call frequency before I began my socialization project and then after it concluded. Alarm calls dramatically decreased from the start of the project to the end. This indicated a decrease in fear of their human caretakers and visitors, leading to an increase in well-being.

Swift Foxes

There were three swift foxes and one was fairly well socialized from the beginning. Whenever I entered the enclosure and rang my bell that was meant to indicate they should recall, she would emerge from her den and allow me to toss meatballs to her. She would approach fairly closely. With time, an older female began to come out for me as well, but was not as eager to approach closer. She seemed to have difficulty seeing or hearing, because she was not able to locate the tossed meatballs very well. The third fox only started coming out toward the middle of the summer and was the most fearful of the three.

By the end of the Summer, there was an upward trend in all three swift foxes coming out of the den when I rang the bell. This indicated that staff might have increased success getting quicker daily welfare checks on all three foxes.

De Brazza’s Monkeys

The De Brazza’s monkeys were challenging due to the social issues between the pair (the female was afraid of the male when they were inside due to some resource guarding). The goal behavior was to have both monkeys recall inside and station to their specific holding areas more quickly. While the goal behavior was eventually reached almost everyday except on rare occasions, they were very slow to come inside.

I noticed that with a higher rate of reinforcement (rewarding for smaller steps instead of just at the end of the behavior), the male was more motivated to come inside quicker. When the male was inside quicker, the female was quicker to recall as well.

I recommend making sure all staff follow similar protocols to reduce uncertainty in fearful animals. This will lead to quicker and more consistent outcomes.

Meerkats

From the start, the meerkats very reliably and quickly came inside whenever their shift door was opened. Keepers claimed that poor weather would sometimes cause them to stay down in their holes instead of coming inside, but we did not have much opportunity to work under those conditions. The meerkats were fluent at recalling at the opening of their shift door throughout the entire summer, but I recommended playing thunder noises on low volumes and taking a more gradual counterconditioning approach to bad weather days. Providing treat jackpots would likely increase the motivation for the meerkats to come inside during storms as well.

Rainforest Birds

Given the challenge of having really only one holding pen over the summer, it was difficult to train a whole mixed-species exhibit to station to that area. However, I did notice that many of the birds did start to recognize the feed station in the holding pen. When I would ring my recall bell, they would come look for the food, though they didn’t always come into the holding pen or stay there. They often took turns grabbing some food and then heading out because they didn’t seem keen on sharing the same space. I would recommend having more holding pens available, although there were extenuating circumstances that prevented that over the summer.