Arctic Wolf and Taiga

[Aotearoa]

I've seen this being discussed on several threads, so I've decided to link all of them from here and I am basically asking for the removal of the taiga biome from the Arctic wolf because of how irrelevant a biome it is for this animal. When a lot of animals in the game are missing suitable biomes, animals having irrelevant biomes is a big immersion breaker for me due to inconsistency in game mechanics.

I understand that some forum users might not be very fond of this suggestion, but as one of the threads I'm linking here proves, incompatible biomes in foliage placement only have a 1-2% effect on welfare, no matter how many incompatible plants you place, so those of you who wish to keep taiga foliage in existing Arctic wolf habitats may continue to do so. However this change will make the game more consistent in its mechanics and prevent spreading wrong information about animals. The educational value of niche games such as Planet Zoo is quite important in my opinion.

1) https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/biome-recommendations-for-the-entire-roster.567611/

Arctic Wolf: Removal of Taiga. Their entire range lies north of the treeline, therefore should be removed. They should also have better long grass suitability, as grasses, lichen and moss are the dominant flora in the tundra.
1) http://animalia.bio/arctic-wolf
"They spend their life in the Arctic tundra, higher than the northern tree line."
2) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/North_American_gray_wolf_subspecies_distribution_according_to_Goldman_(1944)_&_MSW3_(2005).png
3) https://ecoregions2017.appspot.com/

2) https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...ate-biome-in-the-latest-two-dlc-packs.574850/

Good point, but I'd add the Arctic Wolf and Giant Burrowing Cockroach to this list. There are quite a number of animals that require additional biome tags in the game, but only 6 animals (4 of which you've mentioned) have irrelevant biome tags. Here's the additional two:

• Giant Burrowing Cockroach is endemic to the tropical rainforests of Northeastern Australia, therefore the 'Temperate' tag should be replaced with the 'Tropical' tag.
• Arctic Wolves do not occur in the 'Taiga', in fact their distribution lies entirely north of the treeline by a substantial margin.

The relevant sources can be found on @Ursidae's list. Also a very nice thread for additional biome recommendations for quite a number of animals.

Just made a quick test, and turns out that my earlier prediction of a 3-5% drop in overall welfare is an overestimate. Could only reach a 2% drop with maximum coverage and biome unsuitability. Even lower than what I had previously expected.

View attachment 226490
View attachment 226491

To summarize 96 sycamore maple trees in that test apparently only had a 2% effect on the welfare of Australian savannah-desert animals, guessing that's the red kangaroo or dingo.

3) https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...er-by-approximate-animal-distribution.584721/

This is exactly why Arctic wolves in the game need their taiga tag removed. See how far their range is from the taiga belt in dark green? They are only found in the high Arctic tundra, absent even from the low and middle Arctic tundra, i.e. two thirds of the tundra between them and the forest zone:

Ecoregions 2017 ©

 

[ReptoMin]

Same issue exists in temperate biome for Malayan tapir, Cuvier's dwarf caiman, Colombian white-faced capuchin and grassland for North Sulawesi babirusa. Not going to go into detail as one of the links you've provided already talks about it in detail.

 

[-LUCA-]

These biome changes have been asked for as long as I can remember.

I hope it get addressed in the upcoming patch.

 

[Jeeminee]

The other side is: When I want to make a zoo in another biome it makes sense to have trees and voliage from that biome in their habitat. To give animals only the voliage from their own biome seems onrealistic to me.Zoos are everywhere around the world. I think that is why there is only a 2% effect of voliage in An other biome. You can choose yourself what you want to do. Ik am happy that it is like it is now.

 

[Aotearoa]

The other side is: When I want to make a zoo in another biome it makes sense to have trees and voliage from that biome in their habitat. To give animals only the voliage from their own biome seems onrealistic to me.Zoos are everywhere around the world. I think that is why there is only a 2% effect of voliage in An other biome. You can choose yourself what you want to do. Ik am happy that it is like it is now.

I usually ignore biome types when building habitats, even on franchise. That way you can build more realistic zoos with foliage representative of the climate the zoo is located in. I'm glad the effect of unsuitable foliage doesn't exceed 1% most of the time.

Building such habitats was almost impossible in Zoo Tycoon. Frontier has made a really good decision by limiting the effect of foliage type on animal welfare.

This way we can have proper zoo game mechanics without ruining the realism aspect of the game. Two birds with one stone, I'd say. If we didn't have such a mechanic at all, habitat designs would be very bland and boring for the average player, therefore I'm glad such a mechanic exists, but at the same time it is not too limiting.

 

[sympatrick]

I agree, even the polar bear, an animal that has a range penetrating well into the taiga zone, just received its taiga biome tag in the latest patch, so Arctic wolves having the taiga tag is not relevant in any way, when you consider they live hundreds, if not thousands of miles from the nearest forest.

A similar issue exists with the North Sulawesi babirusa, an animal that lives nowhere near grassland or savannah regions. They are endemic to Sulawesi, an island covered entirely by tropical rainforest. There was someone who opposed to this idea by saying "but there are forest clearings in rainforests". If that is the case, then every single rainforest animal in the game would have the grassland biome tag. Therefore I think it is simply an oversight, caused by copying the blueprint of the common warthog when creating blueprints for babirusas. If anything, babirusas should have the aquatic tag, in addition to tropical, as wetlands play an important role in their ecology.

I've already mentioned the inconsistent use of temperate biome tags in the newer DLC packs elsewhere, so not going to delve into it here.

 

[MissySanchez]

+1

 

[Ursidae]

I think they confused the Arctic wolf with tundra wolf when assigning biomes, as the latter makes use of both tundra and taiga regions, when the former is only found on the high Arctic tundra islands far from the treeline that is hundreds of miles inland on the mainland. The following source summarizes the differences between the 3 NWT wolves very well:

Wolves | Environment and Climate Change

Information about description, distribution, types, harvest and social structure of wolves in the Northwest Territories.

www.enr.gov.nt.ca

Timber wolf: Timber or "boreal" wolves living below the treeline or in the mountains depend mostly on non-migratory prey like moose, bison, caribou and deer. They maintain regular territories.
Tundra wolf: Tundra or caribou wolves travel above and below the treeline on the mainland of the NWT. They wolves depend largely on barren-ground caribou and muskoxen. They do not maintain regular territories.
Arctic wolf: Arctic wolves live on the arctic islands and prey mostly on caribou, muskox and arctic hare.

 

[DrBurrito]

Same issue exists in temperate biome for Malayan tapir, Cuvier's dwarf caiman, Colombian white-faced capuchin and grassland for North Sulawesi babirusa. Not going to go into detail as one of the links you've provided already talks about it in detail.

Everyone forgets the poor cockroach because it's an exhibit animal. Here's a comparison of its range with the range of the southern cassowary indicating that its 'Temperate' tag should be changed with 'Tropical'.

The arrow is pointing towards the endemic range of the giant burrowing cockroach within the wider range of the southern cassowary. The range of the southern cassowary extends further south, but doesn't have the 'Temperate' tag, so it'd only make sense for the cockroach to only have the 'Tropical' tag.

Although marginal, both the cassowary and cockroach could technically have the 'Grassland' tag in addition to 'Tropical', but perhaps best omitted due to marginality.

 

[Leaf Productions]

I don't think removing biomes is the way to go. They're broad enough to the point where you can use a mix of foliage and rocks to make a habitat look good as opposed to a limited palette. Sure, it's different in real life, but this is a game after all. Plus, those who already have made habitats designed specifically for the animal will make the animals uncomfortable within them. Plus it restricts the "By-the-rules" player by a lot with that same palette. It seems a bit hurtful more than anything by restricting this palette. Plus, the biomes aren't concrete ideas anyways. They're abstract ideas, look at the African Penguin for example - it's Aquatic and Desert. In reality, it would be Aquatic and Coastal, but since PZ has a limited biome palette, they get creative with how they define these specific biomes, which is actually really good. Instead of restricting players to hyper-specific areas and biomes, the biomes are a lot more mailable, and have a lot of leeway. They're not supposed to be specific, but serve as a method to orient the player towards foliage choice more often than not. I think that biomes are fine, and in fact, should probably add more than take them away. I do appreciate all the research you put into this topic but we should be seeing expansion and adding of biomes to animals and not restriction.

 

[MissySanchez]

I don't think removing biomes is the way to go. They're broad enough to the point where you can use a mix of foliage and rocks to make a habitat look good as opposed to a limited palette. Sure, it's different in real life, but this is a game after all. Plus, those who already have made habitats designed specifically for the animal will make the animals uncomfortable within them. Plus it restricts the "By-the-rules" player by a lot with that same palette. It seems a bit hurtful more than anything by restricting this palette. Plus, the biomes aren't concrete ideas anyways. They're abstract ideas, look at the African Penguin for example - it's Aquatic and Desert. In reality, it would be Aquatic and Coastal, but since PZ has a limited biome palette, they get creative with how they define these specific biomes, which is actually really good. Instead of restricting players to hyper-specific areas and biomes, the biomes are a lot more mailable, and have a lot of leeway. They're not supposed to be specific, but serve as a method to orient the player towards foliage choice more often than not. I think that biomes are fine, and in fact, should probably add more than take them away. I do appreciate all the research you put into this topic but we should be seeing expansion and adding of biomes to animals and not restriction.

I think it depends on the animal and biome in question. I agree that there are many animals desperately needing more biomes, and adding biomes should be the way to go in most cases, but even then, there are some animals with certain biomes that are completely irrelevant. If those biomes are allowed to stay, that would warrant the addition of almost any biome to any animal, which wouldn't be good for game design. I have read through several of these threads and I what I've noticed is removal of biomes are suggested only when the method of abstraction falls out of pattern with the general trend. For instance take the babirusa, giving it the grasslands biome is equivalent of giving every single rainforest animal the same biome tag. Since that isn't a sound solution, the only way to go is removing grassland from the babirusa. It is so irrelevant that it even makes you think whether it has the tag because its blueprint was copy pasted from the common warthog and they forgot to remove it before adding it to the public branch. In another thread, this kind of oversight was proven with two dozen or so early launch and beta screenshots showing animals having the temperate biome tag, which they don't at the moment. Therefore I think if a biome tag has missed the quality review before hitting the public branch, it shouldn't stay there just because it became public in the first place. However, there are indeed intentional choices of abstraction that are consistent with the rest of the roster, those should stay.

As for animals lacking biome tags, I can probably come up with at least a 50-100 examples, when only 5-6 tags are irrelevant and should be removed, so you are right that animals lacking biomes is a bigger issue. What we can do as a community is discuss whether those 5-6 biome choices are in fact not irrelevant or inconsistent with the rest. If there are solid theories, it can change the course of this argument. As for the African penguin, as far as I can remember, their largest breeding grounds is in the Namib desert, with the rest of mainland colonies being wiped out by leopards. Therefore it does make sense for it to have the desert tag over say grassland, as they can't form permanent colonies in regions with more terrestrial predators. I think this is why they have the desert tag, which makes perfect sense to me. If coastal was the reason, then king penguin would also have it. Although I would love if they also added temperate biome to the African penguin, since this biome would better represent the offshore colonies they have.

 

[macronecu]

I don't think removing biomes is the way to go. They're broad enough to the point where you can use a mix of foliage and rocks to make a habitat look good as opposed to a limited palette. Sure, it's different in real life, but this is a game after all. Plus, those who already have made habitats designed specifically for the animal will make the animals uncomfortable within them. Plus it restricts the "By-the-rules" player by a lot with that same palette. It seems a bit hurtful more than anything by restricting this palette. Plus, the biomes aren't concrete ideas anyways. They're abstract ideas, look at the African Penguin for example - it's Aquatic and Desert. In reality, it would be Aquatic and Coastal, but since PZ has a limited biome palette, they get creative with how they define these specific biomes, which is actually really good. Instead of restricting players to hyper-specific areas and biomes, the biomes are a lot more mailable, and have a lot of leeway. They're not supposed to be specific, but serve as a method to orient the player towards foliage choice more often than not. I think that biomes are fine, and in fact, should probably add more than take them away. I do appreciate all the research you put into this topic but we should be seeing expansion and adding of biomes to animals and not restriction.

I think it is better to remove irrelevant tags than keep them. It disrupts immersion and game balance that way if kept. New biomes can always be added to new animals, and should be. There are many species missing major biomes. But this shouldn't be a reason to keep wrong ones. For instance, if frontier had added tropical to polar bear by mistake, would you like to keep it? An example to this is the strange aquatic icon on the sun bear education board. Mistakes can happen, devs are people, most such errors are plain typos.

 

[Leaf Productions]

I think it is better to remove irrelevant tags than keep them. It disrupts immersion and game balance that way if kept. New biomes can always be added to new animals, and should be. There are many species missing major biomes. But this shouldn't be a reason to keep wrong ones. For instance, if frontier had added tropical to polar bear by mistake, would you like to keep it? An example to this is the strange aquatic icon on the sun bear education board. Mistakes can happen, devs are people, most such errors are plain typos.

Arguably it’s better to keep those very same “useless” tags for sake of immersion. When you go to a real zoo in New England for example, you don’t see Baobab trees plopped into the middle of a zebra exhibit, you see native flora. I like having the tags you deem as “irrelevant” because they allow me to build my realistic and “immersive” zoos in challenge mode more.

 

[macronecu]

Arguably it’s better to keep those very same “useless” tags for sake of immersion. When you go to a real zoo in New England for example, you don’t see Baobab trees plopped into the middle of a zebra exhibit, you see native flora. I like having the tags you deem as “irrelevant” because they allow me to build my realistic and “immersive” zoos in challenge mode more.

I would agree if all animals had the same privilege. But when it is 1-2 biomes for 4-5 animals out of 100s of biome possibilities for a 100 animals, it doesn't end up being consistent. And like another user above said, "wrong biome" plants only effect like 1% welfare so you can always place them anyways.

 

[iloveyourzoos]

Speaking for myself alone -- and understanding that others play in other ways -- the only biome markers I hesitate to remove are the ones that impact game play. For me, this includes plant acceptance (since depending on how you play, even small percentage changes can be important) and temperature acceptance (since removing biomes could potentially require more energy costs). But if there are discrepancies in other places (or between data of different screens), such as education boards that don't match the playable biomes, then I'm happy to have those corrected, since they don't impact other game mechanics.

For me personally -- and again understanding that others play in other ways -- I think it can even make sense for devs to include neighboring biomes if it improves gameplay and player options. I agree that polar bears with a tropical tag would be silly, but having taiga for arctic wolves, or grassland for babirusa, or aquatic for various animals - even if not technically matching the "real world" and even if not consistent with every other in-game categorization -- might make sense from a gameplay perspective if it increases the approved foliage options for their continents, or allows the animal's temperature demands to become economically usable in more game maps.

Or at least, I hope those things were part of what the devs were considering and balancing when the errant tags got in, and I hope they continue to take those into consideration before removing them.

I'm also noticing that several of our animals with questionable biomes also happen to be ones where there's been discussion of species vs. subspecies inconsistencies, (ie. where the names or scientific names don't match across screens, or where the zoopedia inexplicably jumps between information or maps that accurately represent one or the other). I understand that that this could be quite upsetting for those seeking absolute scientific accuracy. And/but also wonder if some of these are intentional decisions and compromises made to improve gameplay or game options. For example, is there are multiple subspecies that can cross multiple biomes, but the subspecies they choose for artistic design, popularity, conservation or other reasons only inhabits one of those biomes in real life, they still might make the decision to include the other biomes as possible for gameplay or creativity reasons. (Just as in other cases, they may limit biomes to the most common, even if more sometimes happen in real life, to maintain gameplay challenge).

I'm also noticing that as we get deeper into the weeds of foliage coverage (pun intended), the percentage arguments start to become very inconsistent based on personal playing style. Players who happily say that a small percentage welfare drop shouldn't matter may be equally insistent that a small percentage of inaccurate/inconsistent biome tags completely ruins their immersion! Nothing wrong with that of course -- people play in different ways and want different things and use the in-game tools for different reasons. But it's something I've been noticing more and more in our discussions.

The immersion and education arguments are also quite interesting to me. If an errant biome tag is enough to break your immersion, then it must be because your out-of-game (real world) education allows you to know it's not true. And by contrast, those without that outside education wouldn't encounter the immersion problem. Clearly, one can hold both opinions (that you want yourself to be more fully immersed and want others to be more fully educated), which is honorable. But on a player by player level, or a data-point by data-point level, the amount that each of these rationale would be gamebreaking seems inversely proportionate.

 

[Aotearoa]

For me personally -- and again understanding that others play in other ways -- I think it can even make sense for devs to include neighboring biomes if it improves gameplay and player options. I agree that polar bears with a tropical tag would be silly, but having taiga for arctic wolves, or grassland for babirusa, or aquatic for various animals - even if not technically matching the "real world" and even if not consistent with every other in-game categorization -- might make sense from a gameplay perspective if it increases the approved foliage options for their continents, or allows the animal's temperature demands to become economically usable in more game maps.

That would make sense if all animals in the game already had compatibility with all their native biomes. Once that checklist is complete, you can then start adding neighbouring biomes in a consistent manner. Right now hundreds of native biome tags are missing, perhaps some due to concerns of marginality like Dr. Burrito had explained in another thread, while others might have been forgotten, and on top of that only a handful of animals have those neighbouring biome tags which makes the addition of neighbouring non-native biomes inconsistent.

First, they'd need to complete adding tags for all native biomes, and then use a consistent approach for neighbouring biomes, which would bring the total number of biomes added well into the three digits. Since this wouldn't be feasible, the only way to easily fix the inconsistency in game mechanics would be removing these few irrelevant biomes. For me, the determining factor here is consistency. I wouldn't mind even if they made all biomes suitable for all animals as long as the game mechanics are consistent and balanced. Since these few examples are so out of pattern, it makes me think they weren't intentional in the first place. The babirusa appears to be a copy paste oversight and the four irrelevant temperate biome examples appear to have missed the quality review seen in the screenshots on the other thread. Although the Arctic wolf could be an exception in the sense that it could have been intentional, but it could also be an error, using the range of the tundra wolf as reference. Can't really decide on the Arctic wolf to be honest, either way, it is inconsistent compared to the rest of the animals.

 

[DrBurrito]

After reading about similar concerns on another thread, I had made a quick test to see how much effect incompatible foliage has on animal welfare. The maximum negative effect I could achieve in that test was 2%, of which 1% was related to coverage and the other 1% was related to plant type. In the case of the Arctic wolf, the maximum effect on welfare is a mere 1%, since their plant coverage range is 0-100%.

This effect is equivalent to the negative effect 99% drink cleanliness has on total animal welfare, meaning if everything else is perfect, but your animal's last drink cleanliness is at 99%, then the total welfare of that animal will also be 99%. The same logic applies to a 1% drop in hunger; meaning if your animal is hungry by only 1%, the total welfare will be down to 99%. This mere 1% drop in animal welfare is the most you will get with the least suitable foliage you could give an Arctic wolf. Even if you cover the entire surface of the habitat with incompatible foliage (100% coverage) the effect will be limited to 1%.

This kind of drop (or more, say 2-3%) in animal welfare is inevitable in the game anyways and doesn't really affect gameplay in any way. Your animals will always either be somewhat hungry, eating a different food quality, thirsty, stressed or have some sort of temporary need that will cause a 1-3% drop in any point in time, which won't even be noticeable. Therefore, I don't think it is worth worrying so much about or spending such a long time discussing the possible adverse outcome of such a change. Consequently, if such inconsistencies or inaccuracies exist in the game, that aren't intentional by design, I support fixing them without putting in much thought.

On the other hand, something like increasing habitat size or enrichment needs would result in a huge drop in animal welfare, even if said increase in space requirement or enrichment need is a mere 10%, so such decisions would involve a trade-off for existing habitats (e.g. something Frontier had to consider when increasing polar bear enrichment need), but biomes or terrain really don't have much of an effect on welfare to cause any problems. Personally I don't even pay much attention to them when designing habitats. Realistically zoos will use more of their native flora than exotic ones, so a good zoo simulation will involve both. By putting so little effect into foliage types, Frontier has found a good balance between realism and engaging game mechanics. The game allows you to ignore this aspect of habitat design without even turning off welfare.

Here's an interesting comparison. Placing 'Taiga' biome animals in taiga zoos and 'Desert' biome animals in desert zoos will have a greater effect on their welfare (due to daytime temperatures - not even during a heatwave) than incompatible foliage. Might sound weird, but that's how it is. Such small variation in animal welfare is actually intended in the game by design. So technically you will have better welfare when placing incompatible foliage than placing an animal in its native biome's climatic conditions. For that reason, feel free to decorate habitats the way you wish. Even placing palm trees in polar bear habitats won't cause a problem with welfare.

 

[iloveyourzoos]

That would make sense if all animals in the game already had compatibility with all their native biomes.

Totally fair. If consistency is (one of) the most important factors, either internal consistency or real-world accuracy, then it does become an all or nothing approach. My point was that, for me, there may be times when it's fine to break that consistency if they have a gameplay reason for doing that. Maybe they think a particular animal needs more of a challenge, so they limit the foliage. Or maybe they worry that a particular animal is less popular and needs more options. Some foliage/continent combinations have more in-game plant choices than others do. Some have more climbable choices than others do, or more choices that fit with water. Or larger or smaller shade possibilities. If their primary thought process is about gameplay ease/challenges/options as they add each animal, then they may decide to leave existing inconsistencies -- or even add some -- if it makes for what they think will be better gameplay and habitat design for that particular animal.

Again, for some the most important thing is internal consistency across the species and across the game, or accurate consistency with real life science and geography. That's totally respectable. For me, the more important question is whether the biomes are consistent with how the devs want that animal to be used in-game, even if their goal for each animal is different or inconsistent with their goals for other animals.

meaning if everything else is perfect,

This is also totally fair. Animal welfare does fluctuate naturally, and everyone plays in different ways that make the exact numbers or cut offs more or less important to them. But those percentages can be important at the margins. And while hunger and thirst fluctuate as the animals move around their habitats and do their thing, biome foliage is something that can be controlled and "pre-set" by the player through their design, for those that want to do that. For some of us, we want to max out the areas that we can control, even knowing that there other areas that we can't. Indeed, precisely because there are other areas that we can't.

From a gameplay perspective, I fully acknowledge that foliage definitely has less of an effect than hunger, thirst, habitat size or temperature. But I still think it's worth thinking about and discussing them. After all, if a small welfare impact isn't worth discussion when it comes to plants, then inconsistencies across species' biomes -- which has no impact on animal welfare anywhere, not even that tiny 1% -- wouldn't be able to be discussed at all! (I've been told that my syllogisms are sometimes misunderstood, so to be clear, I do absolutely think the biome discussions are valuable and worthwhile and should continue. I actually enjoy reading the research that you all do. I just think the small welfare impact argument doesn't hold up as a reason to dismiss those arguments in the context of a series of threads about inconsistency, which doesn't impact welfare at all. So maybe the opposite way of saying this is: If something with zero welfare impact is still worth discussing at length -- and I believe it is -- then surely something with an actual welfare impact -- no matter how small -- is also worth considering.)

 

[Aotearoa]

Here's an interesting comparison. Placing 'Taiga' biome animals in taiga zoos and 'Desert' biome animals in desert zoos will have a greater effect on their welfare (due to daytime temperatures - not even during a heatwave) than incompatible foliage. Might sound weird, but that's how it is. Such small variation in animal welfare is actually intended in the game by design. So technically you will have better welfare when placing incompatible foliage than placing an animal in its native biome's climatic conditions.

This applies to African savannah animals as well. Many of them have temperature suitability up to 40 degrees Celsius, so you can't have them on the grassland map without losing at least 5-6 points in welfare during a heatwave and compared to the foliage effect that is 500% higher; which is a much higher drop in welfare in their primary biome than the adverse effect unsuitable foliage has on their welfare. It makes sense that the game doesn't want you to have animals in captivity with perfect welfare all the time. I think that's a very good design choice by Frontier. Makes me glad I have always been building outside the limits of foliage and terrain constraints.

Seeing all this data makes me think how little existing habitats will be affected by such changes, compared to some major decisions that were already made by Frontier regarding existing animal habitat requirements. Therefore, I believe this won't be a reason for them to avoid making such changes. If they don't, there's probably some other reason to it.

and everyone plays in different ways that make the exact numbers or cut offs more or less important to them. But those percentages can be important at the margins. And while hunger and thirst fluctuate as the animals move around their habitats and do their thing, biome foliage is something that can be controlled and "pre-set" by the player through their design, for those that want to do that. For some of us, we want to max out the areas that we can control, even knowing that there other areas that we can't. Indeed, precisely because there are other areas that we can't.

Personally I haven't experienced any negative effect of building outside biome and terrain constraints yet, even at the margins. I usually build with plants native to the location of my zoos and never had any problems with the 1% foliage effect on welfare when combined with other factors. If the animals get stressed enough or have other problems, that single reason alone is always enough to bring the welfare down to a level where you need to intervene, with or without the plants. This is at least my experience with the welfare mechanic. It seems to have an exponential effect on overall welfare, instead of an additive effect. Although I do understand that some people are more perfectionist than others and even a 1% change can be annoying for them. That's a matter of personality I guess, but I hope it doesn't prevent any future decisions by the developers; because those players can always remove the few plants that are causing said 1% effect if it annoys them, or keep them if they want to maintain the habitat design without any welfare issues that affect actual gameplay.