Zoo animals decorate their own enclosures ready for Santa Paws

The animals at Drusillas Park, near Alfriston, have been spotted trimming their trees and decking their halls in the run up to Christmas.

The Zoo’s lemurs, squirrel monkeys, common marmosets and sloths were given the unusual responsibility of decorating their own enclosures this year… with unsurprisingly chaotic results!

Resident sloth, Flash, took to her tinsel duties very well ensuring her and Gordon had a sparkly nest box to snuggle up in, whilst the common marmosets argued over who got to put the sweet potato ornaments on the tree.

The lemurs got lost inside their new stockings, and the squirrel monkeys delighted in destroying everything in sight.

As well as providing lots of fun for the animals, activities like these form part of the Zoo's enrichment programmes for their residents.

The zoo says introducing new objects, materials, scents, and food in unusual, challenging, and novel ways keeps the animals mentally stimulated, which benefits their overall health enormously.

Watch: The animals at Drusillas get into the festive spirit. Credit: Drusillas Park.

Keeper Amelia Jones said:

“The animals really enjoy exploring these new, novel items that they wouldn’t see in their day-to-day lives, it gives them something to work out and gets their little brains working!

"As well as being great fun for us to see them playing and investigating, it’s really important that we enrich our animals in this way to encourage them to display natural behaviours and to keep their days busy and varied.

“Christmas day isn’t actually much different to any other day at the Zoo for our animals, as regardless of the holiday, straying too far from their normal routine would just be confusing for them.

"But, there’s definitely a different atmosphere for us all - the Keepers will be singing Christmas songs in the enclosures, wearing Christmas hats and it’s always a really fun day with everyone in good spirits.”