Peccaries — pig-like mammals of the Americas — face welfare challenges from habitat loss, hunting pressure, human-wildlife conflict, and the emerging exotic pet trade.
Peccaries experience welfare harms across multiple contexts. Hunting with dogs, traps, or snares causes injury and prolonged suffering before death. Retaliatory killing by farmers often uses inhumane methods. The pet trade causes severe welfare harm: young peccaries separated from social groups become severely stressed and behaviorally abnormal, and adults kept as pets suffer from inability to express natural herding behaviors. Habitat fragmentation forces peccaries into smaller patches, increasing stress from overcrowding and reducing access to diverse food sources. White-lipped peccaries are particularly sensitive to habitat disturbance and may abandon large areas after human incursion, with population-wide welfare and ecological consequences.