Wolf populations are recovering across Europe and North America, bringing both conservation gains and welfare challenges related to conflict management, livestock predation, and illegal killing.
Wolf welfare is inseparable from coexistence politics. Wolves living in landscapes where they are persecuted — through illegal shooting, poisoning, and snaring — experience elevated stress and chronic fear alongside significant mortality. Pack disruption through targeted removal of dominant individuals causes social upheaval, reduced pup survival, and altered hunting behaviour that paradoxically may increase livestock predation. Welfare-conscious coexistence policies aim to prevent conflict proactively rather than responding reactively with lethal control: livestock guardian dogs, properly maintained electrified enclosures, and shepherd presence are cost-effective interventions with strong evidence bases. Compensation schemes that fairly reimburse farmers for verified livestock losses reduce the economic pressure that drives illegal killing. GPS and telemetry research, while involving capture and collar stress, provides data that underpins spatially targeted protection measures — a welfare cost with conservation benefit that requires careful justification and minimisation of the capture process itself.