Oil spills cause immediate and prolonged welfare harm to marine and coastal wildlife, requiring large-scale emergency response to reduce suffering.
Oil spills represent acute welfare emergencies affecting thousands or millions of individual animals across multiple species simultaneously. Birds unable to fly, otters hypothermic from oil-soaked fur, and fish with disrupted endocrine systems experience suffering across a spectrum from acute to chronic. While rehabilitation operations save individual animals, their capacity is always insufficient for major spills. Prevention through better oil transport regulation and rapid response planning is the most welfare-effective intervention.