A growing area of animal welfare thought considers the suffering experienced by wild animals from disease, predation, and environmental stress in natural ecosystems.
The welfare of wild animals in their natural habitats represents a frontier of animal welfare thinking. If we accept that suffering matters regardless of its cause, then the immense scale of natural suffering — trillions of sentient wild animals experiencing disease, starvation, and predation — represents a welfare consideration of extraordinary magnitude. This does not necessarily imply interventionism, as ecosystem complexity makes most large-scale interventions unpredictable and potentially harmful. However, it does suggest that welfare-improving actions without major ecological downsides — wildlife disease vaccination, rehabilitation of injured animals, habitat management that reduces starvation — have substantial positive welfare value. Acknowledging wild animal suffering as ethically relevant, even where intervention is not feasible, represents an important expansion of moral concern.