Operant Conditioning and Wellness in American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)
The AAZK Behavioral Husbandry Committee presents
By Emily Maple, Keeper II Reptiles,
Palm Beach Zoo, West Palm Beach, FL
Fred and Wilma are a pair of 22-year-old American alligators that live in a naturalistic lagoon in the center of The Palm Beach Zoo. The lagoon is fed by a natural spring, and it is divided into two pools by a small waterfall. Historically, the animals had been noted as being overweight, sedentary, as well as aggressive to keepers when maintenance was needed in the lagoon. The alligators had previously been on a small training regimen to allow weekly Gator Talks, given by reptile staff members. It was decided that the animals would benefit from an overall wellness program including new training plans as well as diet changes.
The idea of developing a wellness plan for our alligators was a novel one. Wellness is defined as “ 1. the quality or state of being healthy in body and mind, esp. as the result of deliberate effort.” (Dictionary.com, 2010). In studies done on American alligators, response to exercise was “…similar to mammals. Alligators respond to exercise training by increasing their heart size and oxygen carrying-capacity of the blood” (O’Leary, 2006). To begin the wellness program, we knew the diets of our animals were going to be changed, but we also realized the amounts and frequencies of feedings would need to be adjusted as well. Based on ideas from crocodilian managers at other zoos, we decreased the amount of rodents and poultry and frozen fish being offered, and began feeding the supplemental Crocodilian Diet (biscuits) from Mazuri®. We fed only biscuits during daily station training, and fed smaller amounts of whole animals during the weekly keeper talks.
Fred walking over dry land to the top station. Author is holding bucket.
Reptiles’ intellectual capabilities are being discovered as the years pass; “contrary to the widely accepted ‘reptile brain’ theory of intelligence, the alligator is intelligent” (Eme, Okerkowicz, Gwalthney, Blank, Rourke, and Hicks, 2009). Therefore we can conclude that they should be easy to train. The goal of previous training for Fred and Wilma was to station (position themselves at a specific location), and to lift their bodies out of the water to feed off of tongs during keeper talks. We derived our new training techniques such as shaping, as described by Karen Pryor, to teach the alligators “one step at a time, toward an ultimate goal” (Pryor, 1984). Previously, Fred and Wilma’s cue was the sound of a bucket banging on the visitor deck. For the new training, the keepers instead used verbal cues, so that the animal could be called from different areas in the enclosure to one of several specified stations. The goal of the new training was…….
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