Taylor - UR - A look at Enrichment

As I have talked about before, my IRP is based on studying octopus and whether or not "enrichment" is beneficial in making octopus "happy" and more social in it's environment. But what exactly does enrichment mean?

As a child, and even as an adult, we all need time for activities/entertainment and play. Without this time, we become bored, unhappy and even depressed. We feel out of touch with things and the world. This resonates with many animals as well. There have been studies that show that animals with more complex and adapted brains need enrichment; these animals mainly include mammals and birds until it was discovered that cephalopods (in reference to octopi) have more advanced brains than originally thought and do need enrichment, especially in captivity. 

The fact that octopus can also adapt very quickly to their environments just like humans, means the quicker they can get bored of their environment and become unhappy. Octopus in captivity need daily if not more enrichment as they are confined to the same place rather than the ocean and will become bored of the same surroundings. So what happens when octopus get bored and unhappy? Well, unfortunately, octopi that are not happy will swim sporadically around the tank, hit their heads against the sides of the tank and in extreme cases, begin to eat themselves due to a disease that lives within the body. (This can occur just like any virus in the human body, when the immune system gets low, sicknesses can attack easily attack the body.) 

The article, "The Octopus: A Model for a Comparative Analysis of the Evolution of Learning and Memory Mechanisms" talks about some learning processes of the octopus. Octopi can go from being "frightened, hiding octopus to a pet-like animal that behaves in a friendly way." When they are given food, toys and other new, unfamiliar items in their habitat, they will explore, play and can result in a "positive learning process." So does an increase in enrichment increase exploration and expand into increased learning? I believe so. Octopus have a natural curiosity, so giving in to their curiosity and giving them new things to explore begins to enrich the octopus resulting in a happier animal that is not accustomed to the same surroundings.  These can all result in learning and adapting to new things.

Some methods that have been used to enrich octopus are to use items such as jars, blocks, tubes or pipe, anything that they can learn to open, find food in or climb on helps in enrichment as they explore. There are many YouTube videos that show some of these amazing play times!