Aardvarks are highly specialised insectivores with extremely particular dietary, environmental, and behavioural needs that make them among the most challenging mammals to maintain with high welfare in captivity.
Aardvark welfare in captivity is extraordinarily difficult to achieve. The dietary challenge alone is formidable: no commercial diet fully replicates the nutritional content and behavioural engagement of live termite consumption. Aardvarks deprived of natural foraging behaviour — digging, tongue-work, prolonged food search — show reduced activity, abnormal weight change, and deteriorating health. Their nocturnal nature means daytime exhibit requirements conflict directly with their behavioural schedule, forcing chronic circadian disruption. Burrowing motivation is very strong; enclosures that do not provide deep, stable substrate for digging deny a fundamental behaviour. Given these challenges, the welfare case for aardvark keeping in zoos is weaker than for most species; those that are kept require institutional commitment to specialist dietary research, nocturnal facilities, and deep substrate provision.