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Designing Students enhances the well
being of Johannesburg zoo animals
Several animal enclosures at the Johannesburg Zoo recently got a
face lift! 50 students from Greenside Design School visited the
zoo with the aim of designing enclosure fittings which will
assist with increasing behaviour choices for the animals,
encouraging species appropriate behaviour and abilities so that
animals remain in good physical and mental health. They worked
in five enclosures:Chimpanzee, Tigers, Seals, Serval and
Elephant.
The work the students did was part of their course curriculum,
in which, they were required to do a project that serves the
community and they chose to work for animals at the Johannesburg
Zoo. The students are studying graphic design, multimedia,
interior designing and Design Plus (a bridging course into
designing) They were divided into 5 groups of ten students each
group was made of students from the various areas of study and
at various level of their studies ranging from bridging year to
final year. The project had to be completed in four weeks.
According to the students, working with enclosures did not pose
a major challenge as they applied the same principles of
designing, however, the zoo guided them on appropriate materials
and objects to use.Once they picked an animal to work with, they
conducted research on animal behaviour which gave them guidance
in terms of how they could improve the enclosure. Their next
step was to seek the necessary finance and then to get started
with their work.
The Serval Group: Richard Meade, Danica Way, Carrie Grant,
Nicole Pereira, Miguel Abreu, Michela da Costa, Stefan
Siedentopf, Robert Jones, Sasha and Gil Dayson tackled the
serval’s enclosure. The project was designed to give these cats
stimulation, a facility to climb, claw and scratch themselves,
in order to stimulate the servals’ level of activity, and also
to get the enclosure to resemble serval’s natural habitat with
plants and water features.
The climbing structure they constructed consisted of a roof, a
platform and a ramp. The roof provides shade, whilst the ramp
was specifically included to enable the male serval, who has a
slight disability, to use the structure. A landscaped garden of
coloured pebbles and grasses is beautiful to look at and the
plants provide the cats with some privacy.The group got outside
help from The Improvon Group, who assisted by donating the
material used, providing advise and manpower (which included
their CEO!).
Tiger group: Michela Johnston, Linda Adams, Ari Lyons, Colleen
Moore, Damian Gerber, Mothusi Lechuti, Kgomotso Lekoko, Peter
Ketelo, Jaco Smuts and Dziidzani Mmatlagomo set their sights on
the tigers. This project was also aimed to stimulate the natural
behaviour of the zoo’s tigers and to increase their level of
activity. It is important to keep animals in captivity as active
as possible otherwise they risk obesity, which adversely affects
their health and well being.
Their work consisted of a climbing structure and herb garden.
The climbing structure consists of a 3- level platform with a
shade and a ramp on one side. The structure is designed so that
the tigers can jump from one level to the next or use the ramp
to get on or off the structure. Some parts of the structure are
covered with rope, which the tigers can scratch and claw.
The herb garden, consists of various herbs as tigers have an
excellent sense of smell and find different scents interesting.
When tigers come across herbs, they often rub their paws and
bodies in the scents.
Elephants Team: Natalie Len, Kelly Cinnamond, Naeema Moosa and
Nabila Hassam, installed two 2.5-3 ton tyres and 50 litre
turf/hay barrel and also hide food in elephnat enclosure
surface. These objects and actions were meant to to get
elephants to work to get to their feed, which they will have to
do in their natural environment, furthermore to increase the
amount of time it takes to consume their feed, which will keep
them busy for long and alleiate boredom. Both tyres and barrel
also served as toys, which elephants rubbed their trunks and
bashed around and the activity kept them occupied.
Seals Team provided plastic frisbees and hamster ball for seals
to play to prevent boredom, increase level of activity and
stimulate their minds. It was hoped that seals would then become
happier and the chances of the seals being obese will be
minimised.
Chimpanzee Team : Ina-Mari du Plessis, Angelica Simoes, Daniella,
Leandie van Starden, Chantel Smit, David, Khomotso and Badi,
came up with a different approach where they neither built
fittings nor used short term enrichment. They looked at
available resources, which are used to provide enrichment. They
discovered that there were insufficient manpower to help with
enrichment activities, both in terms of volunteers and zoo
staff. The team decided to use a volunteer awareness campaign to
garner support. The campaign consisted of posters, flyers and an
ad posted on the web. They also designed enrichment manual for
volunteers and bought a TV and DVD player. The equipments were
placed in the enclosure. The team was: Ina-Mari du Plessis,
Angelica Simoes, Daniella, Leandi van Starden, Chantel Smit ,
Khomotso and Badi.
The Johannesburg Zoo strives to be Gauteng’s environmental and
wildlife destination of choice and aims to inspire people to
appreciate wildlife by providing an educational and recreational
facility for all visitors. We especially place importance on
four key pillars: conservation, recreation, education and
research. The zoo houses 1868 animals, comprising 365 species in
54 hectares. It places emphasis on ensuring a high standard of
animal care and welfare including nutrition, enrichment,
husbandry and medical care. Moreover the zoo is involved in many
conservation programmes such as The Wattled Crane Recovery
Program, Amphibian Conservation Project, and Spectacled Bear,
Emperor Tamarin and Red-bellied Lemur international co-operative
breeding programmes
Prepared and issued by Letta Madlala, Brand & Communications
Manager, Johannesburg Zoo, on behalf of the Johannesburg Zoo, 27
August 2009.
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