Animals in Planet Zoo have four core needs:
- Nutrition
- Social
- Habitat
- Enrichment
These combine to affect the animal's overall welfare.
Animals with higher welfare will live longer, are less prone to illness, attract more guests and generate more donations. Animals with lower welfare can become sick and, in the worst cases, can even die. Poor animal welfare can also attract Protesters to your zoo.
You can examine an animal's welfare levels by selecting the animal in the world and viewing the first tab in its Animal Info panel, or by observing the Animal tab in the Zoo Management screen.
Information for individual species requirements can also be found in the Zoopedia.
Nutrition Welfare
Nutrition is made up of four components:
- Nourishment – whether the animal has been able to find enough food.
- Last Meal Quality – the nutritional quality of the animal’s last meal. Improved food types can be found for your animals through research.
- Hydration – whether the animal has been able to access water.
- Last Drink Cleanliness – the quality of the last drink an animal had.
Social Welfare
Each animal has its own social preferences. Specific preferences for individual species can be found in the Zoopedia.
These preferences are broken down into three categories:
Social Group
Every animal has a preference for the number of animals of the same species it wishes to coexist with. It may be necessary to adopt, separate or remove animals to find the right balance. Depending on species, you may need to also consider balancing genders and managing alpha power struggles.
Space
There are three kinds of space that an animal may want to navigate within it’s habitat:
- Land
- Water
- Climbing
Some animals also require an underwater area of sufficient size and depth to satisfy their space welfare.
As the number of animals in a habitat increases so does the amount of space they need.
Stress
Animals may get stressed by losing fights and being viewed by guests.
Not all animals are affected by guest viewing in the same way; more confident animals are resilient to a larger number of viewing guests. Animals will attempt to reduce their stress by seeking shelter, hiding or climbing to block or reduce the guests' view. A good habitat will provide shy animals with opportunities to do this.
Habitat Welfare
The ideal habitat will resemble the animal's natural environment.
Cleanliness
Affected by dung, rotten food, skeletons, litter, carcasses and untreated water. While keepers can deal with the first four, a vet is needed to remove carcasses and a water treatment facility is needed to clean water.
Temperature
The ideal temperature range for each species is listed in the Zoopedia. Animals have some tolerance to temperatures outside this range but will start to suffer if the discrepancy is too great.
Terrain
Each species prefers a unique distribution of terrain types.
Plants
Ideally plants in a habitat should match the continent and biome of the animals within it. For example, if an animal prefers the temperate biome in North America, try to ensure that there are North American plants in the habitat. Filters can be applied within the browser to help you more locate the right foliage for your animals. The coverage and the density of plants in a habitat is also important for its welfare.
Hard Shelter
Caves, overhangs, and other solid structures of sufficient size allow animals to rest and hide from the elements. Shelter also serves as a location for stressed animals to recuperate.
Enrichment Welfare
Animals in captivity benefit from activities which stimulate and emulate their natural behaviours.
Enrichment items provide that stimulation, either through food or play. Each animal has a set of enrichment items that they will use; some are available upon acquiring the animal and others are unlocked by performing vet research.
Food Enrichment
Provides nutrition to the animal and also stimulates their enrichment welfare.
Toy Enrichment
Keeps animals active and engaged in their habitats. This engagement declines over time making it less effective. Removing all instances of a type of enrichment toy from a habitat will help restore its novelty bonuses.
Social Enrichment
Many species happily coexist in the wild. This interspecies coexistence boosts the overall enrichment welfare for an animal and can significantly offset enrichment toy penalties caused by lack of novelty.
Exhibit Welfare
Just as with habitats, the welfare of an animal in an exhibit is important for its survival and its chances of breeding successfully.
Exhibit welfare is split into the following categories:
- Nutrition – indicates whether an animal has had access to food or water recently.
- Social Health – a reflection of whether the exhibit is crowded and whether the correct balance of sexes has been achieved.
- Suitability – measures whether there is sufficient enrichment present for the animal.
