Wild animals experience significant suffering from disease, predation, parasites, and starvation that is rarely considered in welfare or conservation contexts.
The welfare of wild animals has historically been excluded from animal welfare discussions focused on human-caused harm. Yet wild animals experience suffering from natural causes at enormous scale — most individuals live short, difficult lives in which pain, parasitism, and violent death are common. Acknowledging wild animal suffering does not require intervention in all natural processes, but does suggest that human actions affecting wild animal populations should consider individual welfare alongside ecological outcomes.