The complex welfare challenges of keeping large felids in captivity and how modern zoo management is evolving to better meet their physical and behavioural needs.
Big cat welfare in zoos sits at the intersection of conservation justification, individual welfare needs, and public expectation. The welfare case is complex: tigers, lions, and leopards have spatial, behavioural, and social needs that are genuinely challenging to meet in captivity. Stereotypic pacing — the repetitive back-and-forth movement that persists even in enriched enclosures — reflects the inadequacy of captive environments relative to natural requirements. Yet well-managed populations of critically endangered subspecies in accredited facilities serve genuine conservation purposes. The welfare-conservation trade-off is most defensible when the animals are wild-type representatives of threatened subspecies housed in facilities that genuinely prioritise welfare. The many captive big cats held in roadside zoos, private facilities, or as pets have neither the welfare nor conservation justification of accredited programmes.