Animal Care | Cincinnati Zoo

Animal Wellbeing

The Cincinnati Zoo is dedicated to the highest standards of animal wellbeing by implementing a holistic and evidence-based approach to enhancing the lives of animals in our care. Our Zoo’s Animal Excellence Science team, animal care staff, and animal health team work together to collect this data and make changes that benefit our animals, including habitat upgrades.

Expand for Details

The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden takes the approach of Animal Excellence in guiding its animal care and welfare program. This “continuous pursuit of optimal animal welfare” is achieved through the regular assessment and improvement of our animals’ holistic experience. The Zoo’s welfare assessment process and behavior monitoring give staff a sense of our animals’ experience – or the outputs of animal welfare. Welfare assessments are customized by taxa, with key welfare indicators for each group of animals identified and defined by cross-departmental care staff and the Animal Excellence Scientist. Chosen indicators have been spread across the Five Domains of Animal Welfare, so that an animal’s wellbeing is measured with a holistic approach. Ongoing behavior and space use research gives our animal care staff a sense of seasonal activity budgets and how they correspond to a species’ natural history. The Zoo’s Animal Excellence Science team also utilized camera, sound pressure level meters, and light meters to better understand an animal’s fuller physical and sensory environment.

Animal Health

The Cincinnati Zoo has three vets on staff as well as vet technicians and a nutritionist.

Back row (L to R): Mike Wenninger, Jenny Kroll, Barbara Henry, Jenny Nollman, Jessica Heinz Front row: Amy Long, Joy Cooper Janell Duvall

How does the Zoo take care of so many animals?

There is 7-day-a-week coverage at the Cincinnati Zoo Animal Hospital. Whoever is available and gets the call will treat that case. Some of the staff members prefer to work with some animals more than others, but everyone is well-rounded and experienced enough to know what is going on with every animal.

Every case is unique. Situations are judged on a case by case basis and discussed heavily with the keepers to make the judgment call on who and what equipment to send. Of course, all of that planning can go completely out the window in an instant if an emergency arises. At the end of the day, the three vets review everything that happened during their shift. Conversations about difficult cases are held and they discuss plans for the upcoming schedule before they prepare for a new day.

What is the standard protocol to care for an animal?

Keepers contact the Animal Hospital and provide known information about the case. If the situation warrants, a vet will see the animal and assess how to go about treating them.

In some cases, we can run routine tests (blood work, sonogram, etc.) fairly easily with the animal awake. However, some animals, such as lions and tigers, must be anesthetized in order to treat them. Thanks to our operant conditioning staff, anesthesia is no longer necessary for certain animals for routine procedures. Gorillas, orangutans, rhinos and even a polar bear have been trained to offer body parts for exams voluntarily!

Every morning hospital staff meet to figure out what the day will be, what procedures are scheduled, which animals need post-procedural checks (rechecks) and to discuss the cases as a team. Then cases are assigned and they head out!

Operant Conditioning

How do we have tigers shift into another space? How do we trim a parrot’s toenails? Or give medication to a Komodo dragon?

It’s a lot of work to take care of the hundreds of animals at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, and it all starts with the day-to-day training by their animal care teams. Our animal care team utilizes Operant Conditioning, primarily a technique called Positive Reinforcement, to shape behaviors that are important to their husbandry or health care. Positive Reinforcement works by reinforcing behaviors we would like to see repeated with something the animal likes. Keeper staff also give cues and set up the environment to give the animal more information about what we are asking. Training with clear and consistent communication creates a common language between keepers and the animals in their care.

How do we start to teach a behavior? The very first thing keepers do is build trust with any animal. Every animal is an individual and can respond differently to each trainer or situation. It takes a lot of time, patience, and consistency to build high trust relationships with the animals in our care. We go at their pace and focus on making the training sessions rewarding for them. This could be with their favorite food, activity, scratches, or anything they find rewarding.

Training has evolved over time, and the benefits of building trust with the animals we work with are endless. This can lead to animals voluntarily participating in medical behaviors, public interactions, or demonstrating natural behavior. The next time you’re at the Zoo and you see a keeper training with an animal, think about how much time they put into building trust with that animal. You could ask them how they built trust with that animal, or even learn what that animal’s favorite reinforcer is.

Animal Enrichment

Enrichment is an important part of the daily care we provide for our animals. Enrichment is anything the zookeepers add to the animals’ environments to stimulate their senses and elicit natural behaviors such as foraging, exploration, hunting, problem solving, and even play. Each species’ individual needs are considered when designing enrichment activities.

Our keepers use enrichment to keep animals healthy by encouraging physical activity and mental stimulation. Some of the ways our animals are enriched include environmental, social, training, environmental enrichment devices, sensory and novel food.

Expand for Details

A primary goal of our Zoo’s approach to Animal Excellence is providing enriching experiences throughout our animals’ environments. Animal enrichment, also known as behavioral or environmental enrichment, provides species-appropriate challenges, opportunities, and stimulation to the animals in our care. This “enrichment” serves to promote natural behaviors, exercise, problem solving, etc. – working to keep our animals both physically and mentally healthy and happy. Since every species has different abilities, sensory modalities, and unique behaviors – and individuals have different preferences and motivations – we try to customize enrichment to the needs of each species and animal in our care.

An enriched environment promotes a range of behaviors like those animals would demonstrate in the wild. These behaviors would exercise species’ unique adaptations, be rewarding to our animals, and even help animals adapt to various stimuli. For example, an enriched environment may promote opportunities for animals to climb to secure heights, dig a shelter, forage for food, or use a variety of motor skills. Both animal care staff and the Zoo’s volunteer enrichment team work together to regularly change up elements in our habitats, modify where and how food is delivered, and provide new features to explore and investigate. For certain species, the social experience is very important; the Zoo team carefully considers social groupings and mixed species opportunities that may contribute to an enriched experience.

The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden is unique in that it has a full-functioning team of volunteers that help to create enrichment for our animals. From simple paper mâché creations that predators can stalk and destroy, to naturalistic-looking shelters and feeders for small cats, primates, and lizards, the team of artisans, engineers, and craftspeople can do it all. Just this year, the team helped develop new shelters for our growing sloth family, vines for multiple aviaries and primate habitats, firehouse beds for cats, and new perching for our birds at the Wings of Wonder demonstration. The materials used in these projects are not cheap, as they need to be animal safe, as well as able to withstand various’ animals’ teeth and claws and various weather elements. Some specialty items are simply too complex to make ourselves, so we order from specific animal enrichment manufacturers.

Habitat Design

Every habitat at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden is a carefully crafted and planned space, custom made for the animals that live in it. The design process can start a year or two before any construction is started on the project and involves staff from several teams across the Zoo. Here at the Cincinnati Zoo, we are very fortunate to have an experienced zoo architect on staff helping to lead these discussions and bring members of the animal care, facilities, and horticulture teams together to create a cohesive vision for the space. From an animal wellbeing perspective, we spend considerable time researching the species’ natural history, unique behaviors and adaptations, social dynamics, and locomotion patterns. We want all these elements to be reflected in the habitat’s design, so that the animals can maximize the opportunities provided in their new home. We also integrate design elements that accommodate younger or geriatric animals and accommodate animal comfort throughout Cincinnati’s various seasons. The design team will also reference USDA and AZA guidelines, as well as other designed habitats at zoos and aquariums from around the world. All this effort is needed to make sure the animals are living their best lives here in Cincinnati.

How to be a Zookeeper

Many people believe zookeeping is a job where you spend your day playing with adorable animals. While our animal care teams do get to spend their day working around amazing animals, they are professionals that work hard to make sure the animals in their care have the best lives possible. Zookeepers spend considerable time cleaning habitats, doing dishes, performing yard work, and doing anything else to keep their habitats in good condition and the animals safe, secure, and happy. Anyone wanting to be a zookeeper should be willing to work hard and sometimes get a little dirty.

The first step to becoming a zookeeper is to have a passion for wildlife and wild places. If you are interested in becoming a zookeeper, start getting experience in animal care however you can, whether it’s volunteering at your local zoo or wildlife rehabilitation center or working at a veterinary clinic or pet groomer. Many of our zookeepers also have degrees in biology, zoo science, or ecology, and while not necessary, a college degree is a great way to grow your knowledge and understanding of animal biology and animal husbandry. Internships and volunteering are a great way to learn new skillsets and a fuller understanding of modern animal care practices. If you are interested in joining the team here at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden you can find more information on our Job Opportunities page and our Volunteering page.