Last weekend I attended the ABMA conference in Denver, Co, hosted by the Denver Zoo who is a customer of StarBird. StarBird is my company that makes enrichment products for parrots and now zoo animals as well. The Denver Zoo is one of our clients.
ABMA stands for Animal Behavior Management Alliance. You can see some of the animals using enrichment if you go to the site. http://www.theabma.org It's very heartwarming to see the gorilla studying him/herself a mirror, the polar bear playing with a pumpkin, the Banded mongoose playing with a meal worm filled Kong, or the bearded dragon on a Mr. Potato Head and more.
There is a mandate that zoo and aquarium animals must have enrichment. It's a start. It's a tiny bright light in the world of captive animals. It's compassion opening the closed door of realization that captive animals have needs... and one of them is for enrichment.
It was a very eye opening experience even though I was only there for two days. I was a vendor, actually the only one on the second day as the other vendor, A Thousand Hands, was only there for Monday, the first day.
There were over 175 attendees and listen to this... something there filled my heart with hope... over 75% of the attendees were women. Imagine that! Women, who are compassionate nurturers if there is such a term. Women, young women, who care deeply about the welfare and enrichment of captive animals. Women, in charge of a heretofore arena ruled with an iron hand by men. Women who have intentionally studied animals, and have given over their lives to work with animals regardless of conditions, hours or effort required. I met so many really friendly women and men who were in the trenches, love what they do, and want to make things better.
Some of the lecture titles: Training Birds for Medical Care,
Mix Method of Positive Reinforcement and Natural Horsemanship used on Wild Equines
San Diego Zoo's Planned Development of Online Animal Care Education
Blazing Clickers
Integrating a Geriatric Cheetah into a Positive Reinforcement Training Program
Maximizing Animal Training Through Evaluation, Training Evaluation Instruction
The Unsinkable Bismarck: The Challenges and Benefits of Obtaining a Physically Challenged California Sea Lion
Enrichment of a Grant's Zebra Through Training and Socialization
“Why” Before “What” Shifting Towards Goal-Based Enrichment
Evaluating Enrichment Devices with Denver Zoo Orangutans With the Goal of Identifying Appropriate Options for Orangutans in Borneo... and that's just a few.
My personal favorite... Beyond Animal Training – Elevating Human Behavior.
Wednesday everyone went to a behind the scenes adventure at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, and Friday the Denver Zoo was the destination; I was sorry to miss the trips, but I was there as a vendor and could not stay the entire week.
There are other conferences coming up. I would very much like to go to them, but that remains to be seen. However, it fills my heart to see that caregivers form all over are gathering in order to share information and ideas on providing better care for captive animals...
It's a very wonderful thing...
