Rewilding programs reintroduce species to restored habitats, but reintroduction stress and adaptation challenges have significant welfare implications for individual animals.
Rewilding represents one of the most promising approaches to restoring biodiversity, but has real welfare costs for individual animals involved in reintroductions and translocations. Capture and transport cause acute stress. Animals released into new environments face challenges including unfamiliar landscapes, prey availability, social conflicts, and human-wildlife conflict. Pre-release conditioning, soft-release programs, and post-release monitoring are essential welfare safeguards. From a utilitarian perspective, the welfare costs to individual reintroduced animals must be weighed against the long-term ecosystem benefits and the welfare of future wild populations. Transparent welfare assessment and monitoring should be standard practice in all rewilding programs.