Long-Distance Migration and Animal Welfare: When Conservation Meets Individual Cost

Long-distance migratory journeys are one of the most demanding challenges animals face, involving extreme physiological stress and high mortality that raises welfare questions.

Key Facts

Arctic terns migrate approximately 70,000 kilometres annually between their Arctic breeding and Antarctic wintering grounds, the longest migration of any animal
Bar-tailed godwits fly non-stop from Alaska to New Zealand over 11 days without eating, losing up to 50% of body weight during the journey
An estimated 50% of juvenile migratory birds die during their first migration, reflecting the extreme physiological and navigational demands of the journey
Migratory species face increasing threats along flyways including habitat loss, light and building collision, hunting pressure, and climate-driven phenological mismatches
Some migratory species including common terns have experienced population-level welfare harm from disturbance at staging sites that are critical for refuelling

Welfare Considerations

Migratory welfare raises profound philosophical questions about the relationship between natural behaviour and welfare. The extreme physical demands of migration — starvation, exhaustion, extreme weather — cause genuine suffering in a physiological sense. Yet migration is also the evolved behaviour that defines the ecological niche of these species. The welfare concern is not migration itself but the anthropogenic factors that make migration more dangerous and costly: habitat loss at staging sites, light pollution, hunting pressure, and climate change. Protecting migratory welfare means protecting the conditions that allow migration to occur without additional anthropogenic burden.

What You Can Do

Support habitat protection and restoration at critical migratory staging and stopover sites globally
Advocate for lights-out programmes in cities during peak migration seasons to reduce collision mortality
Oppose hunting of migratory species along their flyways, particularly in countries with unregulated or weakly regulated hunting
Support international conventions including the Convention on Migratory Species and Ramsar wetland protection
Reduce personal and collective contributions to climate change as the most important long-term migratory welfare measure