Ronda in the News



The Star Online: Enrichment programs for captive animals
Tuesday, July 26, 2011

To prevent captive animals from losing their natural behaviors, zoos are instituting enrichment programs.

Captive animals in zoos and related institutions exist in an environment controlled by people. There are no zebras for lions to pounce on, no trees for elephants to wrestle with, and no rats scurrying through the undergrowth for our slithery friends to surprise...

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The Star Online: Getting the right action from behavioral training
Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Under the glow of soft orange light in Panggung Tunku Abdul Rahman in Zoo Negara, about 100 people are sitting silently as Christopher Cain Xavier, a 26-year-old animal trainer at the zoo's Veterinary Department, walks in.

It is a role reversal exercise and Xavier has volunteered to play the "animal". He has absolutely no idea what his "trainer" John Dana, a 31-year-old senior keeper at the zoo's Ape Centre, wants him to do. Everyone else in the room does, however. They had just moments ago decided he should do the front crawl while standing up...

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