Butterfly populations are declining globally due to habitat loss, climate change, and pesticide use. Conservation efforts benefit both species survival and the welfare of individual insects, whose capacity for experience is increasingly recognised.
Whether butterflies experience welfare in a morally relevant sense remains scientifically debated. They have nervous systems capable of nociception, show avoidance learning, and modulate behaviour based on internal states. Habitat loss and pesticide exposure cause population crashes affecting billions of individual butterflies. If insects have any capacity for experience, the scale of their decline represents enormous welfare stakes. Conservation efforts that restore habitat also improve conditions for individual insect lives.