Two weeks ago, Izzy, our trainee falconer, attended the Association of British and Irish Wild Animal Keepers (ABWAK) 2023 symposium. This is where keepers from all over the UK meet up to discuss the latest research and projects being carried out in zoos and aquaria. Here’s how she got on…
On the 4th and 5th of March, I headed to Yorkshire Wildlife Park to attend the ABWAK 2023 symposium. It was a wonderful weekend, full of research talks, workshops, networking opportunities, and of course, lots of lovely animals! Yorkshire Wildlife Park and ABWAK very kindly offered free entry to the zoo on the day prior to the symposium, so I did have a nice look around, and enjoyed seeing England’s only polar bears at Project Polar.
Izzy enjoyed visiting England’s only polar bears, at Yorkshire Wildlife Park. The park doesn’t own many birds, but is known for it’s collection of carnivores.
On the first day of the symposium, I attended the sealion training workshop – granted, I do not work with sealions! However, animal training is a core part of my role here at Suffolk Owl Sanctuary, so it was really exciting learning about other zoo’s training techniques and cooperative care. Cooperative care is the training of animals by which they willingly partake in their own health checks, wellbeing, and care; this prevents the need of restraint for basic health checks or minor medical procedures. This is something we already do here at SOS, but it is always useful to expand your knowledge in this ever-growing field of animal care and welfare. The keepers were so friendly and knowledgeable, so it was fantastic sharing our training ideas, thoughts, and experiences.
The sealion training workshop was an excellent way to see cooperative care health check training in action.
I loved listening to the talk about the training and enrichment of ex-pet parrots. Here at Suffolk Owl Sanctuary, a small handful of our birds have come from challenging circumstances or may have learned some undesirable behaviours at previous settings; therefore, the talk furthered my knowledge of enrichment devices and training tools I may bring into effect to help with some of these behaviours in our own birds.
The symposium agenda was packed full of interesting upcoming research and project talks. It was really encouraging to see talks about conservation projects locally and abroad, but I did notice some gaps surrounding native species; it has inspired me to hopefully submit my own presentation, as I would love to talk about the conservation and rehabilitation work we do here at SOS at next year’s symposium.
Izzy at the ABWAK symposium, hosted by Yorkshire Wildlife Park.
I did submit some posters about the work we do at SOS to the ABWAK Poster Competition; this is to pass on useful knowledge or techniques to other keepers. Whilst my poster didn’t place (no prize money for me!) I’m incredibly proud of the work I produced, and upon speaking to other delegates from bird-related settings, they were very impressed with the management techniques and high-quality welfare of our birds – mission accomplished!
It was wonderful meeting so many like-minded individuals; I have hopefully made some new connections which may result in some future collaborations with Suffolk Owl Sanctuary, so watch this space!
Overall, it was an incredible weekend.
The ABWAK symposium – it was a beautiful setup! Izzy had never attended a conference with a disco glitterball before!