Pollinators including bees, butterflies, hoverflies and beetles are in global decline, with welfare and ecological consequences for billions of animals and the food systems they support.
Individual pollinators exposed to sublethal pesticide doses suffer impaired navigation, reduced memory and immune suppression that shortens their lives and reduces their welfare across their short adult lifespan. Habitat loss forces pollinators to travel further for food, increasing energy expenditure and predation exposure. The cumulative welfare harm to trillions of insect pollinators annually from pesticide use, habitat loss and climate change is on a scale that dwarfs most other welfare issues by sheer number of individuals affected.