Improving Of Daily Care For Animals

By Khomotso Madisha

Attending the recent Advanced Animal Behavioural Management Workshop hosted at the Johannesburg Zoo was a very good experience for my career as an animal keeper and as a SAAKA member.

The workshop was facilitated by Johannesburg Zoo and Wild Welfare, the 5 day work gathered zoological professionals from across South Africa to help us improve the well-being and welfare of animals in our care.The workshop combined animal behavioural science and hands on practical work. For me, the experience provided critical tools that will directly improve my day-to-day husbandry routines.

Key Learnings and Workshop Highlights: I have learned the importance of animal choice, control, and emotional wellbeing and monitoring of animal behaviours.

 The core modules focused on:

• Operant Conditioning: Mastering the precise timing needed to shape voluntary husbandry behaviours.
• Positive Reinforcement Training (PRT): Practicing force-free target training across various species to make veterinary checkups entirely stress free.
• Enrichment Planning: Shifting away from random enrichment items toward goal-oriented plans that trigger specific, natural wild instincts.

How this training will enhance my routines:

Returning to my daily setups, the impact of this training will show up immediately in how I manage my assigned habitats.

First, I am completely upgrading how I approach training logs. By utilising the objective behavioural tracking methods taught by the Wild Welfare team, I can keep training progression consistent across all keeper shifts, eliminating guesswork.

The hands-on target training for tigers gave me a better understanding of patience, bridging during training and importance of timing of reinforcement during training which will help me improve. 

I have been collaborating with passionate peers at the Johannesburg Zoo which gave me sense and need for keeper exchange and for collaboration with keepers from other facilities.

Thank you Johannesburg Zoo for the love and keeping us safe.