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Over the past six years I have had the great fortune to participate in the expansion of educational outreach and media opportunities utilizing park animals for SeaWorld, Busch Gardens and Discovery Cove. Training animals to interact safely with strangers, be comfortable in a transport enclosure, react positively to being away from home, not be scared by new sounds and sights, and perform trained behavior when requested, is a gigantic, but necessary challenge. |
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The ability to begin with a young, naïve animal, may seem to be the optimal situation with many species if you have the time. But that is not to say older animals cannot adapt and find travel reinforcing. There is an advantage to teaching an older, more experienced animal to travel well - they already may know quite a bit of behavior, be comfortable with lots of people, touching and activity, and in general, be more calm. We found this to be the case with one of our California sea lions who appeared with me on The Tonight Show. He had not done studio work prior to this. He did however have years and years of show and in-park visit experience, in quite a variety of areas in the park. One of the final tests to see if he was ready for the show was when the trainers took the animal inside our 4-D theater while the movie and effects were in progress. If cannons, air puffs, and strobe type lighting didn't affect him, we knew he was ready for just about anything! The trainers also worked him on transport for several weeks before the appearance. After a three-hour transport, and hours of waiting and rehearsal before filming, our "star" was calm and confident on the stage of the Tonight Show. |
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| Several years ago we trained two one-year old naïve sea lions for the same trip. For six months prior to the appearance, we worked on conditioning them to be comfortable in the transport unit, a few basic behaviors, and on being calm and relaxed in new environments. They did a great job on stage with Jay and myself, but will definitely become more comfortable with additional years of experience behind them as our older sea lion had. | ||
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Obviously, for these types of outreach, desensitization is the key. There are several main areas on which we concentrate - handling the animal, kenneling, visual stimuli and noise. We train animals to be comfortable being handled in unusual ways utilizing approximations, expecting and reinforcing non-resistance, calmness, and acceptance from the animal. I have found lots of short, positive approximations in the beginning can actually eliminate the flight or aggression response that might be encountered when circumstances are uncomfortable. I have utilized play like hide and seek, tag and "gotcha!" to "train" positive acceptance and desense of unpredictable events. We approximate the acceptance of potentially negative stimuli, paying close attention to and extending thresholds - and reinforce acceptance and relaxation. If the animal is trained to accept being picked up at any moment, by any person, being placed into a kennel, handed to someone else, or to show off a part of their body, they're fine with it. Training animals to be handled "unusually" at times is a great tool to have that still allows your relationship to be based on trust. |
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| Desensitizing visual and auditory stimuli is another important area. When in a new environment, animals are particularly attuned to novel visual stimuli and many objects and movements are threatening. Props, equipment, children, cameras, etc. moving quickly towards them can be particularly frightening. We have spent many sessions slamming doors, dropping trash-can lids, blasting the stereo, flicking the lights, rotating the disco ball, sliding chairs across the room, throwing balls, playing the drums and dancing around the room in order to make these stimuli less meaningful, and in fact, reinforcing. | ||
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I want to share with the world the traits that make each animal unique and fascinating - what great manipulators their hands are, how high they can jump and what loud, interesting vocalizations they have. Each appearance and event always reminds me of how much work it takes to have a successful interactive outreach program, and how much more we still would like to accomplish. But one thing we have accomplished with trained animal interactions is the ability to touch the hearts of people, who then seem to understand how rewarding it is to share this world with other forms of life and take action to preserve it. |