Wild Animals Celebrate Christmas at Zoo
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Wild animals and creatures celebrate Christmas early today as Santa arrived bearing gifts and treats at the Taronga Zoo. Like eager kids on Xmas morning, the Sydney zoo’s pride of lions, giraffes, chimpanzees and Kodiak bears dived in to tear their presents apart in mere seconds in an animated display.
Chimpanzee eats a capsicum at Taronga Zoo in Sydney. Photo Xinhua / Reuters
The initiative was the brainchild of Taronga Zoo officials with the inkling to stimulate their natural curiosity and help them maintain their natural hunting abilities.
“Curiosity is important for any creature and we continually present different things to our animals such as new food items, puzzles from which they have to retrieve food or branches from other exhibits to arouse their senses.” Taronga’s behavioral biologist Margaret Hawkins said.
“Being so close to Christmas we thought we’d add a festive touch to the activities.”
The gifts were an indulgence of the creatures’ favorite foods — the lions’ brightly colored boxes contained much loved chunks of meat.
A lion eats a Christmas meat treat. Photo Xinhua / Reuters
The giraffes had a Christmas tree hung in their enclosure made of pine tree branches. It was decorated with toys and sticky bottles containing molasses which the giraffes gobbleg up with their long, blue tongues.
A giraffe eats a Christmas treat of apples. Photo Xinhua / Reuters
Santa left Taronga’s chimpanzees large Christmas colored ice blocks hidden throughout their exhibit, while the zoo’s Kodiak bears gorged on custard and fruit pies.
A chimpanzee licks a frozen Christmas treat. Photo Xinhua / Reuters
Kodiak bear eats a Christmas treat of fruit pies. Photo Xinhua / Reuters
Ms. Hawkins said “behavioral enrichment” was important for the animals but also enhanced humans’ understanding.
“It wasn’t so long ago that tool-making was thought to be one of the vital things which separated humans from the animal kingdom.” she said.
“(But) food substances are often hidden in a mock termite mound within the chimpanzee enclosure which they extract by making tools to poke into it.”
Ms. Hawkins said other animals, including marine mammals, big cats, meerkats, otters and primates, would continue to receive Christmas inspired enrichment activities throughout the festive season.
Sources: Daily Telegraph, News AU and China View
Tags:animal animals Christmas creatures gifts Taronga Zoo Xmas zoo zoos
WOW its great to see animals do have a great time…Infact they deserve it since they all are living beings…Happy Xmas to them
All living creatures deserve to be treated specially at Xmas time, Sudarshan
I love the chimpanzee’s face as he’s licking his big ice lolly
I WOULD LOVE TO SEE PHILADELPHIA ZOO SHOW OFF THEIR WILD ANIMALS AT CHRISTMAS.