Back to School For the Wildlife!
- Kaitlyn Scheffler
- May 23
- 3 min read
Updated: May 28
While it’s back to school for all of us, the animals at Oatland Island Wildlife Center are always learning!
Oatland Island Wildlife Center may teach thousands of students every year, but the keepers are teaching the animals too!
What goes into animal training at Oatland Island Wildlife Center?
Animal training for wildlife is similar but not always the same as training a pet. There are “behaviors” or asks that keepers can make of the animals, and rewards that are provided in response to a positive outcome, but training wildlife is a little more complicated than training say a dog at home! For one thing, some of the animals at Oatland - like the cougars - always have a barrier between the humans and the animals. This protected contact is for the safety of the person and the animal, but it means that there has to be a lot more trust and willingness between the keeper and the animal because if the animal doesn’t want to train, you can’t go get them or even touch them. This makes communicating with these animals more difficult and training can take longer! The feeling of success when an animal understands what you are asking and performs that behavior is really great though!
What kinds of behaviors can be trained?
The behaviors that the wildlife are taught at Oatland are to help them participate in their own care! Touching a target can help us teach them where they need to go for food, medical care, and evacuation training. Scale training helps get accurate weights on the animals to ensure they are eating enough and aren’t becoming sick. Voluntary medical behaviors like injections, blood draws, or even just touching certain parts of the animals that may be weird for them are all great ways to ensure that the animal's medical care and the educational component as an ambassador for their species is as stress-free as possible. For ambassador animals, like the ones you see at the weekly animal encounters, the training is often to desensitize them to touch and to large crowds. Some animals can be worked with in close proximity like our barnyard animals! Some, like the Cougars, have to have more creative ways to achieve our goals!
What are the most useful tools for training?
Target poles - targeting is one of the most basic training tools, but being able to target can lead to so many other behaviors that it is usually one of the first behaviors taught!
Clickers and Other Bridges - a “bridge” is a signal, such as a clicker, whistle, or word, is used to mark when an animal does something correct. This helps the animal understand that the behavior it performed is what led to the positive reinforcement.
Reinforcement - Maybe the most important tool for training and finding an animal's preferred reinforcement! Many times it is a favorite food, but can also be scratches behind the ears, being brushed with their favorite brush, a nice cool splash of water or even just a verbal reinforcement. imagine saying good boy to your dog! What happens? He gets excited! That’s a verbal reinforcement!
Training wildlife is more difficult than you might think, but so rewarding and is so important because when animals participate in their own care, they are happier, healthier, and less stressed!
Want to help Oatland Island with the tools they need to succeed? Check out their Amazon Wishlist by clicking the button below - there are many training and reinforcement items you can purchase for the keepers!
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