Wild animals experience stress responses from predation pressure, food insecurity, and human disturbance; chronic stress impairs health and welfare in ways that conservation biology increasingly recognises.
Wild animal stress is an important but underacknowledged welfare consideration. The focus on acute welfare events — injuries, disease, predation — often overlooks the chronic stress states that affect wild animals continuously. Chronic predation pressure stress in prey species affects immune function, reproductive success, and cognitive function over extended periods. Human disturbance during sensitive periods — breeding, migration, winter refugia use — imposes welfare costs on wild populations that wildlife management should consider alongside demographic impacts.