Providing nutritionally appropriate diets that also engage animals in natural feeding behaviours is a critical and often underappreciated aspect of zoo animal welfare, with significant consequences when either nutritional or behavioural needs are not met.
Zoo nutrition sits at the intersection of physical and psychological welfare. An animal that is nutritionally replete but fed in a way that provides no foraging challenge has its basic physiological needs met while its behavioural needs go unaddressed. This creates animals that are healthy by blood panel metrics but psychologically under-stimulated — a welfare deficit that behavioural observation reveals through pacing, over-grooming, and increased aggression. The shift in zoo practice toward feeding enrichment — providing food in ways that require problem-solving, searching, or manipulation — represents genuine welfare progress. The challenge is implementing this consistently across large, diverse collections where staff time, budget, and species-specific knowledge requirements are significant. Institutions with dedicated nutritionists and enrichment programmes that integrate feeding into daily welfare planning have substantially better outcomes.