Rewilding projects reintroduce keystone species to restore ecosystems. The welfare implications for both reintroduced and existing wild animals require careful consideration.
Rewilding involves complex welfare tradeoffs between individual animals and ecosystem-level welfare outcomes. Individual predators released into unfamiliar territory face high initial mortality from territorial conflict and starvation. Individual prey taken by reintroduced predators experience acute suffering. Against these individual costs, the ecosystem-level welfare benefits are substantial: healthier prey populations with better nutritional condition, restored habitat complexity that benefits many species, and the reduction of starvation and disease in overpopulated prey herds without natural predator regulation. Welfare-conscious rewilding accounts for these tradeoffs through careful site selection, monitoring, conflict management and willingness to accept that some individual suffering is the price of ecosystem recovery.