Vampire bats are among the most socially sophisticated bat species, sharing blood meals with roost-mates and forming lasting reciprocal relationships. Their welfare in captivity and the ethics of culling programmes deserve nuanced examination.
Vampire bat welfare is complicated by the species' role as a rabies vector and the widespread culling programmes aimed at reducing livestock predation and rabies transmission. Anticoagulant paste culling — where a captured bat is coated and returned to groom colony members — is particularly welfare-concerning because it causes slow death from haemorrhage to many individuals simultaneously. Evidence suggests that culling disrupts colony age structure in ways that may actually increase rabies prevalence by removing older, immune individuals and creating larger proportions of young susceptible bats. Livestock vaccination against rabies is a more humane and more effective intervention than culling. In captivity, vampire bats' extraordinary social bonds make colony housing a welfare necessity — the food-sharing relationships they form are not incidental but a core feature of their social life. Separating bonded individuals causes measurable distress.