Name: Molly Kukawka
Year: Junior Class of 2018
Hometown: St. Clair, MI
Internship: Animal Behavior/ Arctic Intern
Location: Toledo Zoo, OH
Working in the Animal Behavior
department, I’ve experienced and have put into perspective, a lot of things.My whole definition of enrichment
has changed. Before my internship I didn’t realize how complex enrichment is.
One has to balance a lot of facets. Enrichment does not last as long as you
think it does and a big thing to watch is matching the time and effort to make
enrichment and time the animal will actually spend with it. This can be tricky
in the Arctic, especially when it comes to ice. I can spend days layering ice
and the bears will tear through it in minutes, and it’s not as enriching as it
such be. Over time I have come to learn the individual bears’ preferences and
favorites and I have come to appreciate and enjoy the enrichment process more.
The
other major mind changing aspect of my internship is training. When my family
and friends hear that part of my job is to train seals, their mind immediately
goes to seals jumping through hoops and balancing balls. In reality training is
a whole lot more complicated and takes a lot of patience. Training is used a
lot today to desensitize animals to medical procedures and basic body
examinations. The repertoire of behaviors is constantly being tested,
perfected, and expanded. Communication is a huge gap to bridge (pun intended)
and things can get lost in translation. Also, verbal and hand motion cues can
get confusing, there are distractions everywhere, and you have to be the calm,
patient, and stable epicenter of it all. Helping with training has taught me so
much about the nature of perspective and motivation and I feel extremely fortunate to be a part of it.
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