Zoonotic disease outbreaks require mass culling of animals that are often healthy but exposed, creating acute welfare dilemmas where individual animals suffer for disease control goals.
Disease control culling creates a genuine welfare dilemma: the welfare harm imposed on individual animals in mass culls is real and significant, but uncontrolled disease spread causes more diffuse welfare harm across larger populations. The welfare case for vaccination over culling is strong where scientifically feasible — it prevents individual suffering from both infection and the cull response. Where culling is unavoidable, welfare standards must not be compromised by speed pressure, even at scale.