Episode 347 Rick Hester, Amy Schilz, & Lucy Butler Pt 2 - Enrichment: Freeing Up The Operant

For the episode we’re continuing our conversation with Rick Hester, Amy Shilze and Lucy Butler.

Rick is the Curator of Behavioral Husbandry for the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado. He oversees all the zoo's behavioral programming. His work includes the zoo's animal training for husbandry, medical, and public show behaviors, enrichment, developing programs to improve problem behavior situations, the zoo's formal animal welfare assessments, and exhibit design for behavior goals.

We’re also joined by Amy Schlis, who has the dream job of working with the Cheyanne Mountain zoo’s giraffe.

Amy is the Senior Animal Behaviorist for Cheyenne Mountain Zoo's International Center for the Care and Conservation of Giraffe, where she runs giraffe workshops and conferences, both stateside and internationally.

Both Rick and Amy also partner with Dr. Susan Friedman and her Behavior Works consulting team so you’ll hear a lot of references to Susan throughout this conversation.

In addition to Rick and Amy, I invited Lucy Butler to join us. Lucy and her husband run the River Haven Animal Sanctuary in Rhode Island. I knew she would have a lot of questions for Rick and Amy. When you take in animals who are the victims of abuse, there’s a lot to be learned from the work that goes on in zoos to reduce the stress of handling and also to improve the overall quality of life for the animals under their care.

In this episode Rick and Amy introduce the concept of freeing up the operant: what that means and how that impacts the implementation of enrichment opportunities for the animals under their care. This episode is rich with ideas for providing more enrichment for our horses.