--- title: Training and enrichment: keeping zoo animals busy and healthy — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Training and enrichment: keeping zoo animals busy and healthy», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: A wild animal spends most of its day busy: searching for food, digging, climbing, sniffing and chasing. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Training and enrichment: keeping zoo a… # Training and enrichment: keeping zoo animals busy and healthy Lesson 112 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 17 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/0/) — A wild animal spends most of its day busy: searching for food, digging, climbing, sniffing and chasing. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/1/) — In a zoo the food comes easily, so keepers have to give back the busy part of life, and that is called enrichment. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/2/) — Enrichment can be food hidden in a cardboard box for a bear to rip open, a tray of sand with mealworms for meerkats to dig, new ropes for a gibbon, a new smell for a lion, or a meat-scented sack zooming along a zip wire for a tiger to chase. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/3/) — Training uses rewards, never force: the keeper clicks a clicker at the exact moment the animal does the right thing, then gives a treat, just as you might teach a dog to sit. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/4/) — It is not for tricks: an elephant that lifts its ear on cue lets the vet take blood without a fight, and an animal that touches a ball on a stick can be guided onto the scales. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/5/) — In target training an animal learns to touch a target, such as a ball on a stick, to get a reward, so keepers can move it onto scales and into position for health checks without force. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/6/) — A clicker marks the exact moment an animal does the right thing and a food reward follows; training with rewards is called positive reinforcement, and it is used for dogs too, and even fish and crocodiles have learned to come to a target for a reward. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/7/) — Modern zoos let animals choose whether to take part in training, and animals take part more often when they know they can walk away. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/8/) — Food enrichment hides food in boxes, logs, ice blocks or puzzle feeders, so a bear uses its nose, claws and strength as in the wild. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/9/) — Scent enrichment brings new smells such as spices, perfumes or the dung of other animals; lions given zebra dung roll in it and sniff it for a long time. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/10/) — New climbing frames, ropes, branches and hiding places are enrichment too, because new paths keep animals active and curious. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/11/) — Some zoos try music, sounds or screens for apes and parrots, and orangutans in some zoos have used tablets to watch videos and play games. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/12/) — Zoos test whether enrichment works by counting behaviour such as pacing (walking the same path again and again, often a sign of boredom or stress), play and resting before and after; this is part of animal welfare science. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/13/) — Meerkats dig all day in the wild, so a box of sand with hidden mealworms lets them do what they feel driven to do. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/14/) — Elephants are trained to present an ear, foot or trunk, so vets can take blood from the big veins behind the ear and test water blown out of the trunk for germs. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/15/) — Some zoos pull a lure along a rope or zip wire so tigers and cheetahs can stalk and sprint, which gives them exercise they are built for. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/112-training-and-enrichment/16/) — Enrichment is planned on a calendar so that it is different every day. - ← previous: [Feeding times and the zoo kitchen](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/111-feeding-times-and-the-zoo-kitchen/) - next →: [Breeding programmes for rare animals: studbooks and frozen zoos](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/113-breeding-programmes-for-rare-animals/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)