Wild animals vastly outnumber farmed and companion animals, and the scale of suffering in nature from predation, disease, starvation, and harsh weather dwarfs human-caused animal suffering, yet welfare science and advocacy largely ignores this domain.
Wild animal suffering represents the largest scale welfare issue that exists, involving potentially quintillions of animals experiencing pain, fear, starvation, and early death. The historical neglect of this domain by welfare advocates reflects both the scale and complexity of the problem and the intuition that nature is not our domain to manage. But consistent application of welfare principles requires acknowledging that suffering matters regardless of its cause. Wild Animal Initiative and similar organisations are developing rigorous frameworks for identifying tractable, safe interventions that reduce wild animal suffering without causing greater harms through unintended ecological consequences.