Marine mammal rehabilitation centres provide care for stranded and injured seals, dolphins, and other species. Welfare considerations during rehabilitation affect both animal wellbeing and release success.
Marine mammal rehabilitation involves a fundamental tension between providing care and minimising human habituation that would compromise post-release survival. Welfare during rehabilitation means balancing treatment necessity against the stress of human contact, captive confinement, and artificial feeding. The best rehabilitation protocols minimise unnecessary handling, use visual barriers to reduce human imprinting, prioritise natural prey where possible, and make evidence-based decisions about release readiness using established criteria. The welfare of released animals must also be tracked to evaluate whether rehabilitation is genuinely beneficial.