Mandrills are the world's largest monkeys and highly social primates whose welfare in captivity depends on appropriate group size and structure, environmental complexity, and foraging opportunities.
Mandrill welfare turns substantially on social group management. These are animals whose entire social world is structured by complex dominance hierarchies, coalition formation, and kin relationships — the social fabric is not decorative but functional, providing each individual with information about food access, safety, and reproductive opportunity. Disrupting this fabric through animal removals or transfers causes acute stress for the entire group, not just the affected individual. Zoo populations are necessarily far smaller than wild hordes, but maintaining stable groups of 10-15 individuals with appropriate age and sex composition provides the minimum social complexity mandrills require. Foraging enrichment is particularly important: wild mandrills spend 3-6 hours daily in complex foraging behaviour, and captive individuals given only presented food show abnormal behaviour and aggression. Scatter feeding, buried food, and cognitive devices that require problem-solving to access food substantially improve welfare outcomes. The striking colour dimorphism between dominant and subordinate males provides keepers with a visible welfare indicator.