Raise the Roof!

Recently, our newest Animal Caretaker, Chris Russell, had an idea for Naked Mole Rat enrichment. Here’s his story and photos.

Last week, our Naked Mole Rat friends got an expansion added to their tube system, allowing them to venture forward and reach new heights. Literally!

Animal Care staff constructed a test tower, to see how our mole rats would do with exploring “up” instead of their normal “out” on a flat plane. This species is known to have wide spreading tunnel systems that can spread out as far as 6 football fields! Since we don’t have that much space, we decided that they can go up instead and see the world from a new perspective.

Within seconds, our naked mole rats were pouring into the elevated tubes to explore their new view. They continued to use it all day. We think this can be counted as a mission success!
We hope to add more chambers to construct a 2nd story tube system, so stay tuned!