Every animal in Planet Zoo 2 has a welfare score: basically, how happy and healthy it is. Each species judges its home differently, so a habitat that's perfect for a zebra might be miserable for a hippo.
If you learn to read the welfare panel, most problems in this game become easy to fix.
Reading the welfare panel
Click any animal to open its welfare panel. Its needs are split into tabs:
- Environment: the ground, plants and temperature. For water animals, also salt or fresh water and how clean it is.
- Habitat: how much land, water and shelter it has, and whether it has things to climb.
- Enrichment: food puzzles and toys. These keep animals busy and stop them getting bored.
- Social: whether the group is the right size and has the right mix of males and females.
- Health: hunger, thirst and illness.
Every need shows a little bar with a target zone. Too much is also a problem. Too many plants, too much grass or too many animals will all drag welfare down, and new players get caught by this all the time.
Getting the ground right
Each species wants a different mix of ground types, which you paint with the terrain paint tool. Some examples:
| Animal | Likes | Doesn't like |
|---|---|---|
| Asian elephant | Sand, light soil, a bit of wet ground | Lots of grass |
| Sun bear | Almost all soil, a bit of wet ground | Grass |
| Orangutan | Short grass everywhere, some soil where it eats | Nothing specific |
| Eurasian lynx | Rock (mossy rock looks great), wild grass | Soil |
| Black wildebeest | Soil and long grass | Short grass |
| Sharks and rays | Fine sand | Coarse sand |
| Komodo dragon | Heavy soil, wet ground | Nothing specific |
Here's a handy trick. Warthogs want short grass, but a pig pen full of neat lawn looks wrong. Paint the short grass in a strip behind the habitat where guests can't see it, then stretch the invisible fence around it. The warthogs get their grass and your habitat still looks muddy and realistic.
Plants: not too many, not too few
Plant cover has a target range. It's not "more is better". In my zoos, hippos were happiest at about 38% plant cover and blacktip reef sharks at about 39%. Cownose rays don't like crowded tanks at all, so a gorgeous coral reef had to lose several corals before they were happy.
If you placed plants from a blueprint, they're often stuck together as one group. Use split group so you can delete single bushes instead of the whole lot.
Shelter
Shelter means covered space the animal can actually get to: a cave, a hut or a rock overhang. Things to watch:
- Rock shelters can be scaled up, which is usually the easiest fix if there isn't enough.
- The animal has to fit through the entrance. Sable antelope couldn't get through small arch pieces, but log arches worked fine.
- A rock overhang dug into a hill counts as shelter for wolves.
Temperature
Every species has a comfortable temperature range, listed in its Zoopedia page. If your map is too cold or too hot, use:
- Habitat heaters: set the temperature you want and how far it reaches. Keep them above the water line.
- Habitat coolers: the same, for animals that like the cold, such as wolves and lynx.
For water animals, the water temperature matters too. My otters kept saying they were freezing even with heaters around the pool. Putting a heater in the water fixed it.
Enrichment (toys and food puzzles)
Most animals want two kinds of enrichment: food-based (feeders, puzzle feeders, frozen treats) and toys (balls, tyres, mud baths, ropes). Some only appear after your vets have researched them, like the mud bath and the underwater toys.
Enrichment also helps guests. Put feeders near the viewing window and animals spend more time where people can see them.
Social needs
- Some species only allow one adult male per group, even when the group can be large. Springbok and black wildebeest are like this.
- When babies grow up, the group can become too big. Move the young ones out before they fight or inbreed.
- A lone animal of a herd species gets lonely. One sable antelope male needed three females with him before he was happy.
Going from 100% to thriving
Reaching 100% welfare isn't the top of the scale. Above it is thriving, and thriving animals boost your zoo's star rating.
You get there through research:
- Have a vet research the species at the research centre.
- As the research goes up a level, new thriving requirements appear. These are extra things that species wants.
- Some research is blocked until you've released that species into a wildlife reserve.
- Meet every requirement and the animal becomes thriving.
Some I've unlocked:
- Meerkats: one more small burrow, some small rocks to hide behind, and better food (food grade 2).
- Asian small-clawed otters: two more sprinklers and food grade 2.
- Sable antelope: grassy decorations and trees with a spreading canopy, like the marula tree.
- Blacktip reef sharks: food grade 2, rocks, a big reef fish from the same region to share with, and a lattice ball toy.
- Golden eagles: food grade 2 and more perches.
When animals get stressed by guests
Some animals need a place to hide from visitors. If you see "Animal cannot vacate high-stress areas away from guests", it means guests can see every corner of the habitat. Build a small rock cave or a planted corner out of view and the stress goes away.
