Meerkats are highly social mongooses that live in complex cooperative groups. Their welfare in zoo settings depends critically on stable social structures, appropriate space, and behavioral enrichment.
Meerkat welfare in zoos centers on maintaining stable, appropriately sized social groups that allow natural behavioral expression. The cooperative breeding system that defines meerkat societies requires groups large enough to have dominants and subordinates in functional roles. Exhibit design should provide substrates for natural burrowing behavior — meerkats without digging opportunities show frustration and reduced behavioral diversity. Sentinel behavior is a natural time budget component that can be facilitated by elevated lookout structures. Meerkats are highly food-motivated and respond well to foraging enrichment including buried insects, food puzzles, and scatter feeding in naturalistic substrates. Heat provision (infrared lamps or heated rocks) supports thermoregulation outside their native Kalahari climate. Regular behavioral monitoring allows early detection of social disruption that can destabilize group welfare rapidly.