Session One: Training and Enrichment Home improvements: behavioural responses of captive gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) to enrichment efforts

This study, split into three parts, describes the behavioural changes in eight adult gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) housed at several European zoos, in response to environmental manipulations. These manipulations were aimed at encouraging more normal behaviour in captive gorillas, by increasing the complexity of food presentation (hiding food in plastic tubes, in holes, in woodwool, etc). In Part One of the study, baseline data of the gorillas’ behaviour were collected daily for one week, under each zoo’s normal husbandry routine. In Part Two, inexpensive environmental enrichment efforts were then employed in the gorillas’ enclosures, and data were collected daily for one week. In Part Three, the experimental enrichment efforts were halted and data were collected daily for one week under each zoo’s normal husbandry routine (as in Part One). The gorillas’ behaviour has been compared across the three parts of the study, and preliminary analysis suggests that the amount of time spent in normal behaviour increased during Part Two and that the gorillas benefited from the more complex feeding environment. This information about the coping responses of the eight gorillas following enrichment efforts allows conclusions about the welfare of these individuals to be made.