As wolf populations recover across Europe and North America, conflicts with livestock farming are intensifying, requiring evidence-based coexistence strategies that address the welfare of both wolves and domestic animals.
Wolf-livestock conflict creates welfare costs for multiple species: livestock killed or injured by wolves suffer directly; wolves subjected to retaliation suffer from shooting, poisoning, and snaring; and LGDs used without adequate socialisation, veterinary care, or nutrition have significant unmet welfare needs. Coexistence tools that prevent predation events — fencing, LGDs, night penning — address multiple welfare problems simultaneously by preventing livestock deaths, reducing pressure for retaliatory killing of wolves, and when LGDs are well-managed, providing these dogs with a rewarding working life. The welfare of wolves as sentient, socially complex animals should be explicitly included in conflict management frameworks alongside economic and conservation considerations.