Conserving behaviour with cognitive enrichment: A new frontier for zoo conservation biology

Modern zoos aim to conserve biodiversity via in situ and ex situ conservation, emphasising their commitment to conservation in their mission statements. While industry bodies strongly encourage conservation, it is typically not a legal requirement. Zoos are criticised for housing charismatic, not conservation-critical, species that bring visitors through the door. Conservation biologists consider captive-bred individuals inferior to their wild-born counterparts; these individuals have lower survival rates post release. Success rates of reintroduction programmes are universally low. Research suggests captive-bred animals lack behavioural flexibility and plasticity due to the relatively impoverished enclosures in which they are maintained. Behavioural flexibility, and learning, allow animals to adapt to a rapidly changing environment and such flexibility is an important characteristic of survival. It is postulated here that if zoos are to improved their effectiveness at conservation they should consider the application of cognitive enrichment, a type of occupational enrichment where significant cognitive challenge is provisioned over a protracted timeframe. Learning is considered the key to improving both individual welfare and species or population conservation. An empirical study on the effects of cognitive enrichment on learning and welfare in captive chimpanzees is presented. When given a complex food task and demonstrations of how to solve the task the chimpanzees showed considerable skill development. Cultural conservation is subsequently conceptualised where models of behaviour conservation are extended beyond preconditioning immediately before release to an enriched life (including rearing) with plentiful opportunity to develop behavioural skills and cultural traditions long before the point of release. This requires a conservation paradigm shift from conservation of species and genetic diversity to conservation of populations and behavioural diversity. In situ applications of cultural conservation are also discussed. Cultural conservation is the new frontier of zoo conservation biology.