Wild animal welfare is an emerging field with a small but growing set of organisations dedicated to understanding and reducing the suffering of animals in natural environments.
Wild animal welfare is one of the most neglected and potentially most impactful areas of animal welfare advocacy. The sheer number of wild animals — including invertebrates — dwarfs the number of domestic and farmed animals by orders of magnitude. If even a small fraction of wild animals experience significant suffering, the scale of welfare harm in natural ecosystems is enormous. The field faces unique challenges: interventions in wild animal welfare are complex, potentially unpredictable and politically controversial. But the precautionary principle suggests that the scale of potential welfare impact warrants serious research investment even given current uncertainty about wild animal sentience and the effects of interventions.