Meerkats and other mongooses in zoo settings require colonial social housing, digging substrate, and thermoregulation opportunities that reflect their desert and savanna origins.
Small mongoose welfare across zoo species benefits from a core principle: social requirements must match species-specific ecology. Meerkats are highly colonial and require group housing; banded mongooses similarly require group management; while slender mongooses are largely solitary and appropriate social management differs accordingly. For all species, enrichment that engages their natural foraging strategy is central to behavioral welfare. Mongoose species that naturally forage through digging benefit from deep, diggable substrate; those that hunt above ground need climbing structures and prey-search enrichment. Foraging complexity — hiding food items in varied substrate, using puzzle feeders appropriate for carnivore dexterity — provides daily behavioral engagement. Disease management is a welfare concern as well as a conservation issue: distemper transmission between zoo mongoose groups can devastate colonies, requiring biosecurity between groups and vaccination where available.