Used tires, beer kegs keep zoo animals healthy

A lion rips open a paper bag stuffed with hay and meat. Giraffes chew up old Christmas trees. Asian black bears claw on empty beer kegs. It's been a busy winter for zoo animals — and their schedules promise to be just as packed this spring. But this is not for show: Zoo keepers say games and other activities are essential to keeping animals physically and mentally healthy when they're out of their natural environments.

The so-called "animal enrichment" programs are part of a general change in zoo philosophy in the past several years. Not long ago, zoos thought keeping animals alive and healthy meant serving food in bowls and giving them limited physical activities out of fear of injury. During the cold weather, animals were kept off exhibit in warm buildings with little to do.

"But in an effort to keep them healthy, we almost made them unhealthy," says Tim French, deputy director for animal programming at the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, R.I. "Zoo animals tended to be overweight, pretty much across the board. Behavioral issues were a much bigger problem because they were idle both physically and mentally."

Now all the nation's zoos have enrichment programs of some kind, some even mandated by the federal government.