Wildlife rehabilitation rescues injured and orphaned wild animals. Standards for care, species-appropriate housing and release preparation directly determine welfare and release success outcomes.
Wildlife rehabilitation welfare quality varies enormously across organisations and individuals. Well-resourced, well-trained rehabilitators achieve high release rates with animals returned to the wild in full health. Under-resourced facilities or individual rescuers without adequate knowledge may provide minimum survival care without addressing the behavioural and physical conditioning needs that determine release success. An animal that survives captivity but cannot hunt, recognise predators or locate water after release has not been rehabilitated to a welfare-positive outcome. The welfare benchmark for wildlife rehabilitation is not survival to release but genuine fitness for wild survival. This requires species-appropriate housing, food presentation, progressive independence from human contact and objective release fitness assessment.