In the wild, animals constantly interact with plants for nourishment and entertainment. Zoo gardeners simulate this experience by providing browse to animals for enrichment.

Browse can be a vegetable harvested from the Kitchen Garden at Trillium Creek Family Farm, a piece of bamboo for the elephants to pick apart and eat, or a plant for the gazelles to toss around with their antlers.

As zoo gardeners go about their pruning, they save clippings and cut them to scale for the type of animal that will receive them. The gardeners have extensive knowledge of which plants are safe for the animals. Vegetables harvested from browse gardens are nontoxic, organic and safe for the animals to eat.

Browse plants include:

• Mulberry (morus)
• Willow (salix)
• Birch (betula)
• Maple (acer)
• Zelkova (zelkova)