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Behavioral enrichment (also referred to as environmental enrichment) is an animal husbandry principle that seeks to enhance the quality of captive animal care by identifying and providing environmental stimuli necessary for optimal psychological and physiological well-being. Environmental can either be active or passive, depending on whether it requires direct contact between the animal and the enrichment.

Purpose
Environmental enrichment improves the overall welfare of animals in captivity and create a habitat similar to what they would experience in their wild environment. It can aims to maintain an animal's physical and psychological health by increasing the range or number of species-specific behaviors, increasing positive interaction with the captive environment, preventing or reducing the frequency of abnormal behaviors, such as stereotypies, and increasing the individual's ability to cope with the challenges of captivity.

Environmental enrichment can be offered to any animal in captivity, including:
 * Animals in zoos and related facilities.
 * Animals in sanctuaries
 * Animals in rescue shelters and adoption centers
 * Animals used for research
 * Animals used for companionship, e.g. dogs, cats, rabbits, etc.

The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (also known as the AZA), requires that animal husbandry and welfare be a main concern for those caring for animals in captivity. A survey of over 200 staff working with mammals at 60 zoos in 13 countries found that all forms of enrichment were considered important for mammals, but several of them were rarely available, because of lack of staff or other priorities. * time span over a one week period

** feeding enrichment differs from routine feeding sessions

Passive Enrichment
Passive enrichment provides sensory stimulation but no direct contact or control. This type of enrichment is commonly used for its potential to benefit several animals simultaneously as well as requiring limited direct animal contact.

Visual enrichment
Visual enrichment is typically provided by changing the layout of an animal's holding area. The type of visual enrichment can vary, from something as simple as adding pictures on walls to videotapes and television. Visual enrichment such as television can especially benefit animals housed in single cages.

Mirrors are also potential form of enrichment, specifically for animals that display an understanding self-recognition, such as non-human primates. In addition to using mirrors to reflect the animal's own image, mirrors can also be angled so the animal is able to see normally out-of-sight areas of the holding area.

Auditory enrichment
In the wild, animals are exposed to a variety of sounds that they normally do not encounter in captivity. Auditory enrichment can be used to mimic the animal's natural habitat. Types of nature-based auditory enrichment include rainforest sounds and conspecific vocalizations.

The most common form of auditory enrichment is music, whose principal stems primarily from it's benefit on humans. The benefits of classical music have been widely studied in animals, from sows to non-human primates. Studies have also looked at various other genres, such as pop and rock, but their ability to provide effective enrichment remains inconclusive. Most types of music that are selected for enrichment are based on human preferences, causing anthropomorphic biases that may not translate to animals. Therefore, music that is specifically attuned to the animal's auditory senses could be beneficial. Species-specific sounds require further research to find what pitch, frequency, and range is most suitable for the animal.

Active Enrichment
Active enrichment often requires the animal to perform some sort of physical activity as well as direct interaction with the enrichment object. Active enrichment items can temporarily reduce stereotypic behaviors as their beneficial effects are usually limited to the short periods of active use.

Inanimate tactile enrichment
Inanimate tactile enrichment encourages the animal to explore and manipulate various kinds of inanimate objects, behaviors that the animal would naturally display in the wild. Most inanimate tactile enrichment occurs in the context of searching for food, such as cracking open a nut or digging holes in tree trunks for worms. Other common manipulable tactile objects include rubber toys stuffed with treats. Instead of providing the food directly, foraging devices are useful in increasing the amount of searching and foraging of food, comparable to the amount of time they would spend in the wild.

Inanimate tactile enrichment can also be beneficial without the association with food. For example, stones has shown to encourage exploratory behavior in Japanese macaques. Interaction with the stones exhibited behaviors such as gathering, rolling in hands, rubbing, and carrying.

Other common forms include cardboard, forage, and even the texture of the food (i.e. hard, smooth, cold, warm).

Olfactory enrichment
Olfactory enrichment can stimulate naturalistic behavior, enhance exploration, and reduce inactivity. This type of enrichment is most commonly used for wild felines, both large and small. Exposure to different odors has been shown to influence behavior, resulting in increased activity and exploration. Odors can be smeared or sprayed on an object such as a ball or a tree branch. Types of odors can include catnip, odor of conspecific, or perfume.

Cognitive enrichment
Lack of cognitive stimulation could cause boredom and frustration which are manifested in behavioral disturbances. Because most cognitive enrichment is reinforced with food, it activates reward-related circuits in the brain that can directly affect emotional processes of appraisal. Puzzle feeders are a common method of providing cognitive enrichment, as it makes food harder to access than during routine feeding. Some consider training to be a form of cognitive enrichment, since it requires animals to use their cognitive skills to respond to cues.

Computerized tasks are growing in popularity as it provides feedback as to whether an animal is cognitively enriched.These tasks are designed to test a specific cognitive skill and are standardized so that performance can be compared within and between subjects. It is important to ensure that the task provided is not too easy for the animal, nor too difficult that they get discouraged.

Social enrichment
Social enrichment can either involve housing a group of conspecifics or animals of different species that would naturally encounter each other in the wild. Social animals in particular (i.e. most primates, lions, flamingos, etc.), benefit from social enrichment because it has the positive effect of creating confidence in the group. Social enrichment can encourage social behaviors that are seen in the wild, including feeding, foraging, defense, territoriality, reproduction, and courtship.

Human-interaction enrichment
The most common form of human-interaction enrichment is training. The human and animal interaction during training builds trust, and increases the animal's cooperation during clinical and research procedures. In addition, training sessions have been shown to benefit the welfare of both individually housed animals and communally housed animals by providing cognitive stimulation, increasing social play, decreasing inactivity, and mitigating social aggression during feeding.

Habituation
Although environmental enrichments can provide sensory and social stimulations, it can also have limited efficacy if not changed frequently. Animals can become habituated to environmental enrichments, showing positive behaviors at onset of exposure and progressively declining with time. Environmental enrichments are effective primarily because it offers novelty stimuli, making the animal's daily routines less predictable, as would be in the wild. Therefore, maintaining novelty is important for the efficacy of the enrichment. Frequently changing the type of environmental enrichment will help prevent habituation.

Training
Usage of more highly advanced enrichment devices, such as computerized devices, requires training. This can lead to issues as training often consists of food as a reward. While food encourages the animal to participate with the device, the animal could associate the device with food. As a result, the interaction with the enrichment would bring about behaviors that are associated with training instead of the desired playful and voluntary behaviors.

Time and resources
The process of producing and providing environmental enrichment usually require greater allocation of time and resources. In a survey, "time taken by animal care staff to complete other tasks" was the most significant factor influencing environmental enrichment provisions and scheduling. Therefore it is important to develop appropriate environmental enrichment programs that can be effectively carried out with the size of staff and time available.