Using Technology to Expand Behavioral Husbandry with Joey Golden [Episode 289]

In this forward-thinking conversation, Ryan Cartlidge is joined by Joey Golden — curator of animal behavior programs at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, where he oversees behavioral husbandry programs with a focus on extending behavioral husbandry across the full 24-hour cycle. Joey's work centres on building scalable systems for behavioral and environmental data collection, and using data-driven reports to connect that information to welfare decisions. Inspired by Hal Markowitz, he also leads an engineering program developing automated habitat features that allow animals to earn outcomes on their own schedule around the clock.

Together, Ryan and Joey explore how data, technology, engineering and animal behavior can come together to create new opportunities for animal care. Joey shares the evolution of his "observe, interpret, improve" approach at the Maryland Zoo, including the development of camera infrastructure, animal behavior volunteer programs, data collection systems and an engineering lab that has brought around 30 engineers into the zoo to develop automated habitat features. The conversation highlights how these systems can help teams understand what animals are doing when keepers aren't present, identify meaningful patterns in behavior, and use that information to guide environmental changes.

The conversation also dives into some of the practical realities of building these systems, including limited resources, developing new skills, working across departments, learning through failure, and starting small. Joey shares stories from the Maryland Zoo's grizzly bear and lion programs, including how years of data helped identify changes to a grizzly bear habitat that resulted in the bears using a previously neglected pool far more frequently. He also describes the development and testing of the "carcass claw", an automated system designed to allow lions to engage with carcass feeding in a more dynamic way.

Looking towards the future, Ryan and Joey discuss artificial intelligence and its potential to reduce one of the biggest bottlenecks in behavioral data collection: the enormous amount of time required to review footage and turn observations into usable data. Joey explains how the Maryland Zoo is already building the infrastructure and resources that could support this kind of technology in the future, while emphasising the importance of thinking in longer timeframes and developing systems that can grow over time.

Throughout this episode, we discu