Environmental enrichment is often constrained by financial costs and time demands on caretakers, and providing live prey to enrich the environment of predates raises ethical concerns (Newberry, 1995).
Costs of enrichment varies among different categories of enrichment. Creating an enclosure large enough to house a group of large intelligent animals is perhaps the most costly source of environmental enrichment. Other enrichment, like altering feeding methods, is not a costly or time consuming method of enrichment in general.
Enrichment can often be seen as a win-win situation for both the animals and the zoological institution. When appropriate enrichment is provided, animals will have the opportunities to display more naturalistic behaviors which may attract more visitors. Providing appropriate enrichment may also decrease the amount of stereotypic behavior which allow the animal to reassign those energy to enhance its immune system or reproduction.
While enrichment can be time consuming, financially costly and can often be complicated, the loss of ‘ecosystem services’ is far more costly and worthy of using our resources to preserve captive populations.
