位於西雅圖的林地公園動物園今天發佈了一系列麻氏樹袋鼠（Dendrolagus matschiei）貼文，這邊分享其的中一篇給各位。
除了樹袋鼠寶寶真的可愛到爆表的長相之外，林地公園動物園還透過文字傳遞了一個相當重要的觀念—豐富化的用意在於為動物「#提供選擇的機會」，而非許多人先前認為的讓動物「#沒事找事做」，各位不妨思考看看兩種想法間的差異。
對於樹袋鼠這樣的樹棲物種來說，通過在展場內設置棲架或種植喬木這一舉動，除了給予動物選擇要不要上樹、下地的自由外，也增加了展示場地的三維空間利用。
通過野生樹袋鼠身上電子項圈的發信裝置了解牠們在 #不同高度枝幹停留的時間，是現在林地公園動物園在巴布亞紐幾內亞支持的 #樹袋鼠域內保育計劃 的目標之一，除了能幫助保育者尋找雨林中的樹袋鼠外，也給了動物園搭建棲架的參考數據，更進一步地給予動物在不同高度的棲架間進行選擇的自由，這一切，都建立於物種在野外的存續以及對於其自然生活史的了解。
Boop! We try to provide all the animals at the zoo with choice. Just like for humans, there are a lot of choices that animals have to make in their lives. Choice to hunt, graze, nap, run, cool off, warm up, just to name a few. Some things we provide our animals at Australasia is the choice to be outside or inside, the opportunity to cool down with misters on a hot day, and different spaces to either be away from others or all together. Choice is just one of the ways we can provide animal welfare to the critters living here. We also provide choice when it comes to our training sessions.
Tree kangaroos are most comfortable up high in the trees. They don’t go to the ground very often. We try to mimic their natural environment by giving them lots of options of branches at different levels. Ours spend a lot of their time on their benches that we provide and love to traverse the different levels of branch work throughout their environment. Our tree roos have participated in testing new GPS collars that are now being used by Lisa Dabek and her crew at Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program Papua New Guinea. These collars collect data on not only home ranges, but how they use their vertical space in the trees. They are able to tell the altitude at which the tree roos are at any given point, so cool!
#KeeperSpotlight #TakeoverTuesday
