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Volume 1, No. 11. June 29, 2001

Island desserts
The Louisville Zoo in Kentucky pushed the animal care and exhibit envelope when it opened Islands four years ago, the first zoo habitat to feature daily rotations of four species: four babirusas, four orangutans, two tapirs and a Sumatran tiger. The animals spend a few hours in one of three habitats or their day room before being transferred to another space. This frequent transferring is intended to be a form of enrichment for the animals, who get new environs and scents throughout the day, and for zoo patrons, who get a sense of entering a wilderness where they never know which animals will appear where.

Sharing exhibit space among animals, including prey and preyer, is becoming more common in zoos: the lions and hyenas switch paddocks at Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida, on a weekly basis, and the Arctic Encounter at the Toledo Zoo in Ohio gives its polar bears a cross-over area with seals. No zoo has taken the practice to the extent that Louisville has, though, and a tour of the backstage area may explain why. The transfer tunnels and gates of the $11.5 million facility are more extensive than the habitats themselves.

The complex includes 76 shift doors and about 140 locks in a labrynth of caged pens, passageways and flyovers. Each transfer requires two handlers, one to open the doors, one to hold the animal's attention. The variety of animals involved further complicates procedures. The zoo's supervisor of animal training, Jane Anne Franklin, said the tiger responds to 10 commands, the orangatans to 40, and one of the orangatans arrived at the zoo with transfer papers describing him as an "electrician, carpenter and engineer, all in one." Getting either unwilling or too-willful residents through the cage maze can interrupt timed procedures.

Despite the facility's complexity and the staff-intensive nature of the exhibit, Franklin, an 11-year veteran of the Louisville Zoo who has worked in almost every husbandry department there, is certain Islands is fullfilling its mission of animal enrichment—for all five species involved. "I've got the happiest staff in the zoo," she said. "It's enriching for us. And the benefits in veterinary care far outweighs the amount of work involved."

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