2). Match to Sample training penguins with Anna Svensson (Swedish trainer)
Recipient of the IMATA (International marine animal trainers association) research advancement award in 2015.
To celebrate international animal training month – 2018 we are going to focus on Sweden & learn about some amazing animal training projects from some amazing Swedish trainers. You will receive the following 5 items below for FREE over the month of February …
- Cooperative care/husbandry training with dogs example (CLICK HERE).
- Match to sample training (with Friken penguins
!)
- Cooperative care/husbandry training with Parrots (CLICK HERE).
- Positive reinforcement horse riding (Coming Soon) ?.
- The importance of choice and control in our animal training. (CLICK HERE)
VIDEO – One ?
? – Plus, we are hosting two exclusive live sessions with prominent Swedish trainers/behavior experts (for Animal Training Academy members only):
* 12th Feb 2018 – Peter Giljam (from the Zoospensefull blog) will be running a live web-class on Group training. We’ll discuss the many approaches to training groups of animals, and how this can be achieved with the minimal number of people. We’ll be focussing on the zoo environment, but this content will also be relevant for all species. The class starts at 8 am New Zealand time (click here to convert to your time zone). But if you can’t make it live, you can catch the recording in the member’s area.
* 19th Feb 2018 – Dr. Karolina Westlund, Associate Professor of Ethology – University of Stockholm will be joining us. We’re deciding between a live Q&A, or maybe a more focused discussion on animal emotions – I’m asking the Academy members for their input on this. This session will start at 8.30am New Zealand time (click here to convert to your time zone) and again, the recording will be available in the members’ area.
Interview with Anna (Scroll down for full video interview ?)
Question: Please introduce yourself?
My name is Anna Svenson and I’m a marine mammal trainer. I started my career in 2006 in New Zealand working for a few years in the marine mammal hospital and also show presentations there. And then I joined this interesting project in Dubai training Antarctic penguins for another four years, very interesting. And now, I’m currently working in Vietnam as a marine mammal trainer for a consultancy company called Wildlife In Focus.
Question: Can you tell us about the Match to Sample penguin training you were involved in?
Yeah, that was me and my colleague Paola Cuevas, we did this project together. I remember there was a guy in one of my encounters meeting the penguins and he asked me, “If the Penguins could see colors.” And I actually didn’t know… So, I said to him, “Hold on a minute … or a couple of months. I will find out for you and I will get back to you.” And then, we decided to team up and work and to see if they could do discrimination. We decided to do the simple discrimination training to start with and everything just developed from there, our ideas just came more and more. So, we started with the shapes and then we started with match to sample concept, ideas just keep growing and the penguins, they showed good results, positive results. So, we just kept going.
It was all ideas in the head, just brainstorming, what are they going to do? What material are we going to use? So, well, we just used a simple cut of a piece of paper laminated and let them target them and see if they can discriminate between them. They could. In the video, some of our faces are surprised because it’s catching the first moment when they actually get to discriminate between the colors, yeah, very interesting.
Question: Can you talk about your experience with Animal Training Academy?
I’ve only been a member for about two-three weeks, but I’m enjoying it so far. I have been able to look up a little bit, I can see a lot of people being connected and I think it’s very important that we all share our experience like this and it’s going to be the best for the animals in our care. And I’m looking forward to seeing many more web classes, very interesting how we can all discuss certain subjects.
VIDEO: Ryan Cartlidge of Animal Training Academy talks with Anna Svensson
VIDEO – Two ?
Can’t wait until the web-classes to learn from/with an international community of super cool and nerdy animal behavior & training geeks … ?
Then … Check out the link below to learn more about whats on offer … !
Leave a Reply