After hanging from the courtyard balconies of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for the past three weeks, several 20-foot vines of hanging nasturtiums were donated on Wednesday to the lemurs and gorillas at the Franklin Park Zoo.
The vines, part of the museum’s central garden display, are normally composted. But this year, they were given to the animals, who smelled and played with them. The flowers are new to the animals, said Erica Farrell, assistant curator at the Franklin Park Zoo.
“I think this time they were just investigating the new plant and more touching and smelling and playing with it than trying [to eat] it,” she said. “That’s often what happens when we offer something new, it may take a few times for them to get comfortable with it and then maybe get comfortable enough to try it.”
The museum’s nasturtiums have previously been composted after reaching the end of their peak bloom at the end of the annual exhibit.
But by exposing the animals to them, Farrell said it encourages them to explore their surroundings.
“We hope to increase their well-being,” said Farrell. “We just really want to encourage them to act and interact with each other as they would in the wild.”
Cass Bidwell, a horticulturist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum who came up with the idea to donate the vines, said she previously worked at the zoo planting vegetables for animal enrichment.
“Nasturtiums are an edible plant. They’re grown as a vegetable in a lot of places,” she said. “That’s kind of where my mind went immediately was, 'Oh, I wonder if the animals at the zoo could use this as enrichment once [the museum was] finished using them in the courtyard.”
The zoo chose the gorillas and ring-tailed lemurs because they commonly eat plants similar to nasturtiums, including fruits, flowers, leaves and bark.
Bidwell said the nasturtiums have a peppery, spicy taste and smell that she thought would make an interesting addition to their diet.
“Animals are stimulated by new experiences and one of those could be taste or a new food,” Farrell said. “We give these new foods to them to encourage them to be inquisitive about their environment, to investigate their environment.”
Farrell said this is the first time she knows of that nasturtiums were offered to the animals.
Farrell said the zoo is interested in partnering with the museum again and anyone else who has access to edible plant material.
“We really strive to offer them as much food that closely resembles their natural foods in the wild,” she said. “Plant material, trees, shrubs, bushes, flowers, all that kind of stuff is really valuable to us and the animals.”
