Animal Assisted Therapy for Special Needs Children

The Zoo has now been re-opened to the general public. We were closed for a total of 22 days since the start of the war in Israel and partially open for 13 days but with number restrictions according to the directives of the Home Front Command.

While the Zoo was closed to the general public, we were allowed to host small groups of evacuees who were being hosted at Jerusalem hotels for free (through the coordination of the Jerusalem Municipality). We hosted on average some 1000 evacuees a day and we are continuing to host them.

As part of the guided visits of evacuees at the Zoo, we were able to integrate small group sessions of our Assisted Animal Therapy Program into the families' visits.

Led by the head of the AAT Program, Vee-Vee Merlin-Knopp, and held at the Animal House classrooms, these sessions are aimed at promoting experience sharing and helping with the trauma these adults and children have experienced.

The hosting of the evacuee groups without charge required additional expenditure: we had to have extra guides per group in case of air raid sirens which would require swift evacuation of the groups to the safe areas and bomb shelters at the Zoo and we also provided them with refreshments (water, hot drinks and cake/biscuits).

Currently, we are offering a reduced ticket price for evacuees and for general visitors.

A few examples of activities we did this year with our therapeutic groups:

Yael, one of our seasoned therapists,reports about a visit to the peccary exhibit:

“The group was excited to be responsible for feeding this South American animal (which looks a little like a pig but is not related but is also a little smelly). We had to teach them not to throw directly to the animals but to where the animals were not standing.

Also to make sure smaller, slower animals got food thrown near them as well. I had them cut up the fruit and vegetables first as part of the preparation process.

They learnt not to throw too hard, not to throw weakly because then the food can fall in the space between guard rail and electric wire. When this happened, and the food fell into "no man's land," we made an activity of constructing a utensil/ tool to retrieve the wasted fruit and vegetables in order to be able to try and throw them in to the exhibit again.”

In this example we see that the group is learning how to problem solve together as a group in the altruistic act of feeding the peccaries.