Kitana
26-05-2007, 12:22 AM
A very good friend of mine is a professionnal animal trainer since 25 years, and in her life she has imprinted many different mammals (I can recall arctic and gray wolves, lions, tigers, lama, deer, marmot, and I may forget other species). She is very scientific in her approach to imprinting an animal and do not want to do any mistake that could screw them up more than necessary, and she imprints them so well that Gary Priest, from the San Diego Zoological Society, bought some of the arctic wolves she imprinted to walk them and show them in the Zoo, amongst the public. Ray Coppinger himself came to the zoo where she worked to see how she was imprinting the cubs, to give you an idea of the quality of her work...
So, we were talking about the imprinting process and the difference between birds and mammals and the goals you want to achieve with an imprint, and she pointed to me something done by falconers that would be considered as a big mistake in any other species. I would like to see if somebody could comment this and tell me if I depicted the imprinting process wrongly to her or not!
The thing she pointed as wrong to her, is the imprint tank. She told me that all the biologists, for birds and mammals alike, teached her to keep the animal in close contact with her 24/24, 7/7. No bath, or shower, no clean clothes or deodorant or perfumes (at least for the animals sensible to scents), the animal must accompany her everywhere she goes, in her arms if it can't follow. The Wolf Park, led by Dr Erick Klinghammer, imprints wolves that way and in a way which resembles more falconry with the cubs kept in enclosures most of the time and humans present a certain % of the day. They have more agression problems with the ones that are kept separated from humans compared with the ones that live with humans.
She told me that the #1 goal of imprinting an animal is to annihilate any fear it could develop by making it grow amongst those possible fears, in close contact with them, learning this way that they are not dangerous. So by seperating the animal from the world in a tank, even a transparent tank, is not something she would do... So for those who imprinted one or many birds, what do you think of this opinion, and the imprint tank? Keep in mind she is a special person with no disdain of anything, wolf cubs and tigers and lions and deers are not clean animals such as cats or dogs, they urinate and defecate exactly where they are, even if they sleep or eat there... So when she imprints them, there is urine and poops all over the place, of course she cleans out but it is waaaaay worse than bird mutes...
So, we were talking about the imprinting process and the difference between birds and mammals and the goals you want to achieve with an imprint, and she pointed to me something done by falconers that would be considered as a big mistake in any other species. I would like to see if somebody could comment this and tell me if I depicted the imprinting process wrongly to her or not!
The thing she pointed as wrong to her, is the imprint tank. She told me that all the biologists, for birds and mammals alike, teached her to keep the animal in close contact with her 24/24, 7/7. No bath, or shower, no clean clothes or deodorant or perfumes (at least for the animals sensible to scents), the animal must accompany her everywhere she goes, in her arms if it can't follow. The Wolf Park, led by Dr Erick Klinghammer, imprints wolves that way and in a way which resembles more falconry with the cubs kept in enclosures most of the time and humans present a certain % of the day. They have more agression problems with the ones that are kept separated from humans compared with the ones that live with humans.
She told me that the #1 goal of imprinting an animal is to annihilate any fear it could develop by making it grow amongst those possible fears, in close contact with them, learning this way that they are not dangerous. So by seperating the animal from the world in a tank, even a transparent tank, is not something she would do... So for those who imprinted one or many birds, what do you think of this opinion, and the imprint tank? Keep in mind she is a special person with no disdain of anything, wolf cubs and tigers and lions and deers are not clean animals such as cats or dogs, they urinate and defecate exactly where they are, even if they sleep or eat there... So when she imprints them, there is urine and poops all over the place, of course she cleans out but it is waaaaay worse than bird mutes...