Assessing pain in wild animals is one of the most technically challenging areas of welfare science. Developing reliable pain indicators for wild species is essential for both wildlife rehabilitation and conservation management.
Pain assessment in wild animals directly affects the quality of welfare responses in wildlife rehabilitation, conservation management and field research. Under-treating pain in wild animals — because it is hard to detect — is a welfare failure that has historically been normalised by the difficulty of the task. As pain assessment science improves, the expectation that wildlife rehabilitators and conservation managers use validated pain indicators and provide appropriate analgesia is growing. Investment in species-specific pain assessment tools and training for wildlife professionals is a high-priority welfare need.