We had the opportunity to interview Vicki Putman-Weber, senior killer whale trainer at SeaWorld.

She was born in Albany (USA), and she studied biology at Linn–Benton Community College and Zoology at Oregon State University. She began her career in 2000 as an intern at Oregon Coast Aquarium working with seals and sea lions. Later she worked at Ocean World, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom and finally at SeaWorld San Diego, in California.

Some of you already know the story of Xana, the sea lion with regurgitation problems as one of the WeZooit members, Enzo Rodriguez, carried out this training and presented it at the IMATA 2018 conference in Portugal.

In the summer of 2012 Zoomarine Italy decided to host a young, small group of Australian Pelicans (Pelecanus conspicillatus) in the vision of implementing them into the bird collection.

With the arrival of these animals a lot of questions and doubts needed to be answered: are they social animals? What is their correct diet? How can we control their health? How can we manage these big birds?

In past articles we have talked about reinforcement and the properties they have to create behavior.

As you know, behaviors can be reinforced with primary reinforcement, which are those that have an intrinsic value by nature and are reinforcing; a previous experience such as: food, temperature, water, sex) is not necessary.

Holly Garson is head exotic animal trainer at Flamingoland Zoo. The company she works for is called APAB Ltd who provides the bird and sealion displays at Flamingoland, and animals for film and television productions. She joined the company at 14 years old doing weekend work and she is the manager of the bird show 19 years later.

Simeon Smeele & Sara Torres Ortiz

The project on short-term memory in pinnipeds began when Dolphin Adventure, to increase the motivation and concentration of animals, trained each and every one of its individuals to perform the behavior, which we will call "repeat". This behavior consists of a signal or SD that basically means "repeat what you just did".