Are Visual Stimuli Enriching for Three Species of Odontocetes in Managed Care?

Enrichment is critical to the welfare needs of animals in human care. For almost 3 years, three species of odontocetes were tested on their discrimination responses to familiar and unfamiliar stimuli using two different presentation formats. The current study was an opportunistic investigation of the effectiveness of these visual experiences as enrichment. The results of this visual enrichment resulted in longer gaze durations when compared to a control condition and gaze durations varied based on the presented stimulus and presentation paradigm used, depending on the species. This enrichment did not elicit habituation within or across sessions, suggesting that the visual stimuli continued to be interesting and attention grabbing even across multiple months and years. Overall, the re-evaluation of a data set derived from a free-swimming discrimination task investigating responses to familiar and unfamiliar visual stimuli under two different presentation paradigms suggested that this type of visual enrichment can be stimulating and reinforcing to these three species. Future research should continue to assess individual visual preferences to better understand the benefits of different forms of enrichment on the welfare of cetaceans in human care.