Rewilding projects are transforming degraded landscapes by restoring ecological processes. Understanding their welfare implications helps advocates engage with this growing movement.
Rewilding creates genuine improvements in animal welfare at the population and ecosystem level by restoring habitat complexity, prey availability, and natural behaviour expression. However, the welfare of individual animals involved in reintroductions requires careful attention. Animals translocated to new environments face stress from capture, transport, and navigating unfamiliar landscapes. Predator reintroductions create welfare costs for prey species through predation events. These costs must be weighed against the longer-term welfare and conservation benefits to both reintroduced species and the broader ecological community. Welfare-informed rewilding practice monitors individual animals after release and intervenes where necessary.