It has been cold lately and that means that the Ring-tailed lemurs have been inside in their indoor holding area. Since they are inside, we want to make sure that they are getting enriched. A recent enrichment item that we have used for the lemurs is skewering dried fruit on pumpkins or like in the following pictures on paper towel tubes.
Glad Cassandra and Satyrus were comfy and warm. Wondering what the red square with the red x is for? Thank you.
I can answer that, DJ.
The red box with the X was part of a behavior the Ringtails were learning. The goal was to have them put both their hands in the box and have their back facing the keeper. It’s a harder task to train than you might think, the Ringtails always seem to keep an eye on the keeper that’s working with them and as a team, there was a lot of walking in circles. The hope was that we could then train them to stay there with their hands on the wall so we could look at their back, fur, or apply medication to their skin if we needed to.