Wild animal welfare science is developing methods to assess the wellbeing of animals in natural environments. This emerging field challenges the assumption that wild equals well.
Wild animal welfare science challenges the comfortable assumption that wildlife lives free and well in natural conditions. Wild animals face a constant array of welfare challenges including disease, parasitism, starvation, predation stress and injury. The average individual may spend significant portions of life in negative welfare states. New methods including biologging of physiological parameters, non-invasive cortisol sampling from faeces and cognitive testing allow researchers to assess welfare states in free-living animals without capture. This emerging evidence base is beginning to inform decisions about wildlife management, conservation interventions and even novel questions about whether reducing wild animal suffering at scale is a legitimate moral goal.