Ensuring That Guests See Our Animals

At Disney’s Animal Kingdom, the visitors are a very important part of our work. Even our behavioral husbandry team mission states that we will inspire our visitors to take action for wildlife and wild places through a better understanding of animal enrichment, training and welfare. Therefore, we consider both the animal’s needs and the visitor’s needs in everything we do.

One way we do this is by ensuring that the visitors have the opportunity to see our animals. We assess the visibility of exhibit animals from the visitors’ perspective as an ongoing research project that began when Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened in 1998. The Disney’s Animal Kingdom research team creates a weekly report that tracks the visibility of critical species on exhibit in the park. This data is collected multiple times a week through direct observation of critical species. All species must have an 80% visibility rating. Visibility is defined as at least the head and half of the animal’s body visible from the visitor viewing area.

The above information is compiled into a weekly report. In partnership, the research, behavioral husbandry and animal care teams review the visibility report and use it to monitor and, when necessary, help develop methods to enhance animal visibility through the use of enrichment, horticulture enhancements, and exhibit modifications.

The process works this way. Once a critical species has dropped below the 80% visibility rate for a period of time, the research team is notified to review historical data, initiate a more detailed behavior study and determine possible next steps. Next the behavioral husbandry, animal care and research teams meet to problem-solve solutions. Methods are tried and assessed based on future visibility reports.

In addition to visibility we also provide behavioral opportunities for the animals while on exhibit. These elements may be permanent structures or rotating items to provide complexity.

All of these many steps of staff involvement, input and time tiers to our mission of delivering excellence in animal care and welfare. The goal of all this work is to allow animals to express their species appropriate behaviors while still providing the guests with a memorable experience.