Cats are obligate carnivores with strong predatory drives that manifest as welfare problems when unmet, and enrichment approaches that channel these instincts are essential for feline wellbeing.
Cat enrichment welfare is fundamentally about honouring the predatory biology that domestication has not removed. A cat with no outlet for stalking, chasing, and catching will redirect this drive toward inappropriate targets -- other pets, human ankles, or obsessive play with objects -- or will suppress it into anxiety and over-grooming. The welfare solution is not to suppress the drive but to provide appropriate outlets: interactive play sessions that replicate the full hunt sequence, puzzle feeders that require problem-solving effort, and environmental complexity that offers variety and choice. These are not luxuries for cats -- they are the environmental conditions that allow the expression of species-typical behaviour that defines positive feline welfare.