Migratory birds face multiple welfare challenges during long-distance seasonal journeys including exhaustion, habitat loss, hunting, and collision with human structures.
Migratory bird welfare involves suffering at multiple points along journeys of thousands of kilometres. Exhausted birds that fail to find suitable stopover habitat experience physiological stress comparable to the most demanding endurance events. Illegal trapping using glue traps causes suffering and death to millions of birds each year in the Mediterranean, a practice condemned by international conservation bodies but imperfectly enforced. Light pollution causes navigation disruption and collision mortality in urban areas. The welfare of migratory birds is inseparable from the quality and connectivity of the habitat they depend on at breeding, wintering, and stopover sites across multiple countries.