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Building your own zoo takes a lot of work, especially if you want to prevent protesters from picketing outside the exhibits and habitats. InPlanet Zoo, it’s your job to make sure the animals live their best lives until they are either released into the wild or pass on in captivity and comfort.
Keeping animal welfare high has other benefits as well–like ensuring your guests are happy and donate to the cause. We’ll show you how to maintain a high quality of life for your animals so your zoo can thrive. Here’s everything you need to know about animal welfare and stress.
How To Check If Animals Are Stressed
To see if your animals are stressed, you canopen the animals section of the zoo menuor directlyselect the animalyou want to check. From there, a menu will appear and tell you all about the animals' welfare.
How many age-appropriate peers the animal has.
Space
How much room the animal has to move around, including swimming and climbing space.
Stress
How much distress the animal is in based on their needs.
How sanitary the habitat is.
Temperature
How warm or cold the habitat is, based on the animal’s needs.
Terrain
What type of materials the habitat is made up of, including sand, soil, grass, etc.
Whether the foliage matches the animal’s natural habitat.
Hard Shelter
A safe place for the animal to retreat from the guests' view.
Enrichment
Food Enrichment in Habitat
How many feeder items are in the enclosure that are more interactive than food bowls.
The variety of toys in the enclosure.
Interspecies Bonus
A bonus applied when multiple species can be safely housed in one habitat.
Each need has adifferent bar to show the current status. Green is good! If you’re worried, you canhover over the specific needto see whether the animal needsmore or less of something in their habitatto feel at home.
How To Make Animals Less Stressed
There are plenty of ways to reduce animal stress, and it varies from habitat to habitat. Every animal has different preferences and needs to be met, and finding a way to satisfy them all takes practice.
If needs aren’t met, protesters may appear!
Build Better Habitats
Increasing thequality of the animal habitatsis the first priority. From ensuring there areplenty of trees and shrubsto making sure theterrain is the right type, your animals will get stressed if their new home doesn’t look enough like their natural habitat.
Certain animals, like chimpanzees, bonobos, and lemurs willneed climbing spaceas well. These give them more vertical space to climb,making the habitat feel biggerthan it is.
Use One-Way Glass
You can alsouse one-way glass on the barriersto let guests see into the exhibit without the animal knowing. This allows your guests tomaintain their view without stressingthe animal.
Some animals will need this more than others, but overall it’s a great way tokeep your animals from getting overwhelmed. You canedit barriers at any timeto replace sections with one-way glass.
Provide Enrichment
It’s not enough to have a nice place to live. Animals need something to do!Providing them with toysis the best way to keep them entertained and happy.
Enrichment can be asimple toy or a creative feederthat the animals can play with. Frozen fruit cubes or tyres are perfect for many animals. You canfilter through the enrichment toysin the habitat menubased on speciesto find the perfect match for your animals!
