Meerkats in captivity benefit significantly from foraging enrichment that mimics natural digging, hunting, and social foraging behaviours. Enrichment design affects welfare outcomes substantially.
Meerkats are highly motivated foragers with specific cognitive and physical needs that simple exhibit designs fail to meet. The absence of foraging opportunities drives stereotypic digging and pacing — behavioural indicators of chronic frustration. Social welfare requires maintained, stable family groups where individuals have established relationships and dominance hierarchies. Forcibly combining unrelated meerkats creates chronic social stress with associated welfare harm. Enriched exhibits that provide deep sandy substrates for digging, varied prey-like enrichment items, and adequate space for sentinel behaviour allow expression of species-typical behaviour that constitutes a meaningful welfare improvement over bare enclosures.