How we count wild animals — and whether we include their welfare — has profound implications for how we assess and respond to their situation.
The welfare of wild animals represents the largest potential moral consideration in animal welfare by sheer numbers, yet it receives the least systematic attention. How we count — whether we include all vertebrates, or all sentient animals, or extend consideration to invertebrates — dramatically changes the moral weight we assign to wild versus farmed welfare. A welfare science that takes seriously the scale of wild animal existence would invest more in understanding and potentially improving the welfare conditions of wild populations.