Gorilla cognitive welfare requires enrichment that engages their considerable intelligence. Evidence-based enrichment programmes significantly improve psychological wellbeing in captive gorillas.
Gorilla cognitive welfare requires recognising that their intelligence creates both the capacity for rich positive experiences and the vulnerability to significant boredom and frustration in understimulating environments. Gorillas deprived of cognitive engagement show increased stereotypic behaviour, decreased activity diversity, and reduced social engagement — all indicators of poor psychological welfare. The most effective cognitive enrichment replicates the exploratory foraging that occupies gorillas for hours daily in the wild: browse scattered through the exhibit, food hidden in puzzle devices, novel objects requiring investigation, and keeper interaction that provides social cognitive engagement. The quality of the keeper-gorilla relationship is itself a welfare variable that accredited facilities should monitor and develop.