Taylor - UR - An Experiment on Octopus Enrichment

Today I went to the Marine Science Center to speak with Chad Macfie who is the Environmental Specialist and Live Collection manager there along with Dr. Amy Osmon from DSC about an experiment we could work on with the octopus located at the MSC. I was able to see the octopus and get some information on it's personality. Just like most animals, each one has its own personality and ways of going about its instinctive nature. As for the octopus at the Marine Science Center, since they brought him in on January 29th, they have found him to be reclusive and prefer to stay in his lair most of the time. He will come out during feeding times and enrichment sessions with toys and puzzles. Fortunately, I was able to see an enrichment display done by Chad to see how the octopus reacts with toys and give it some "play time." The octopus almost came fully out of his lair during this play time, but it didn't last long until he decided to hide away again.

But what exactly is enrichment? In the article "Enrichment for Giant Pacific Octopuses: Happy as a Clam?" it is explained that animals kept in captivity need environmental enrichment for their well-being. Environmental enrichment is, "an animal husbandry principle that seeks to enhance the quality of captive animal care by identifying and providing the environmental stimuli necessary for optimal psychological and physiological well-being." So in a less confusing definition: environmental enrichment is a principle that stimulates an animals senses to keep it physically and mentally healthy. As an example, the octopus at the MSC will play with toys or try to get food out of a jar or snorkel tube. This gives this invertebrate physical and mental stimulus that keeps them "happy" and healthy. In some ways, its just how humans react to stimuli. When we get bored, we find something to entertain us, if we don't find anything that keeps us entertained then we tend to get tired and unhappy. This goes just for any animal, especially animals with a higher "intelligence" or more adaptive brain. Enrichment also helps with stress and negative behavior. If an octopus is having a hard time adapting to it's environment and is unhappy, it will instigate negative behaviors such as swimming sporadically around the aquarium, hitting their heads against the side of the tank and in some extreme cases, begin to eat themselves (this is a disease that is common in all octopi, but is only exposed when an animal is stressed and their immune system decreases. Such is the same with a human, if you have a virus inside your body and your immune system is weakened by outside sources, the virus will then attack your body.) So, enrichment is an extremely important factor when taking care of captive animals.

So from talking over some of the wonderful articles Chad gave me, working with Dr. Osmon and debating on what kind of experiment we could actually take data on with enrichment, we all finally came up with a plan. The octopus in the aquarium is again, very reclusive; he hinds under a rock with a barrier of smaller rocks and barnacles and doesn't seem very social. Since the octopus is new at MSC, he hasn't been worked with as much except for the feeding times and enrichment periods throughout the day. He is fed raw food, but Chad has introduced a concept that I will be able to play a role in; which will be to introduce live food to the octopus. Over the period of a few weeks, we will be documenting and taking data on the level of activity that is induced from different enrichment and feeding periods, along with timing how long it takes for the octopus to come out of it's lair to interact with us. I will be creating a data sheet that will then be filled out as we watch the octopus interact with it's new surroundings.

There is a lot going into this Independent Research Project and I could not be more excited to see if we can make this reclusive octopus a more social one!