Mandrills are the world's largest monkey and highly social — their welfare in zoo settings requires large, complex social groups and rich environments.
Mandrill welfare in captivity is fundamentally a social welfare question. These animals evolved in the largest primate social groups outside of humans, and their behavioral repertoire — the rich facial signaling, complex social negotiations, cooperative foraging, and play — exists in service of this complex social life. Zoo mandrill groups that are too small to support the full range of social complexity that this species requires create animals whose behavioral expression is perpetually constrained. Good mandrill welfare requires committing to appropriately large social groups, naturalistic multi-level habitats, and extensive foraging enrichment that engages the cognitive and physical capacities of these impressive primates.