Captive Animal Boredom

"It's well-established that living in unchanging, inescapable environments induces boredom in humans, including prisoners who report that they are highly motivated to seek stimulation."

  A study done by University of Guelph researchers showed that a mink living in a small, barren cage was more likely to snack on treats throughout meals, and often laid awake idle. They also more “desperately” seek and quickly approach stimulation, even objects described as “normally frightening” as opposed to other animals that lived in large enclosures with places to climb and explore.

Enclosures
  To put it simply, in the wild, animals are constantly concentrating on activities that must be done for survival & many must travel miles a day in order to search for food or a mate, & raise young. In captivity, food and sometimes mates are unnaturally provided right there. They usually are in the same place day after day, pretty much “goalless.”

Detecting Stress & Boredom
  Pacing is often seen in confined wide ranging animals that would naturally roam constantly, but cannot go far. 
  Other signs of stress or boredom commonly seen in zoo animals are repetitive head bobbing, rocking, biting themselves and constantly grooming. With bored & stressed parrots, they often over-preen themselves to the point they’ll end up plucking their feathers out and become naked.
Over a period of time I’ve visited different zoos & similar places, one of these being a small roadside zoo. Many of the enclosures were quite small and bare with little to no toys or other enrichment and surely enough, I saw a number of the animals pacing & repeating their steps, back and forth… back and forth. The other place I went to had a number of big cats. They provided them with large enclosures full of places to climb on and new enrichment every day. Here, I observed little to no signs of boredom.

Prevent Boredom: Enrichment & Stimulation
  With boredom being such a problem that it is, providing stimulation is to prevent this is a necessity. Captive life doesn’t have to be so bad. Taking animals for walks and providing new toys often will surely help. Being the ones who got them here, we owe it to them.