Climate change is creating welfare crises for wildlife globally. Understanding the scale and nature of climate impacts on individual animals motivates effective advocacy.
Climate change is perhaps the most significant emerging driver of wildlife welfare deterioration globally. The welfare costs are both acute and chronic: extreme weather events cause immediate mass mortality events while gradual changes in temperature and seasonality create chronic nutritional stress, reproductive failure, and disease vulnerability. Individual animals experiencing these pressures suffer: polar bears in prolonged fasting, seabirds raising chicks when prey has shifted beyond their foraging range, and amphibians in desiccating ponds all experience real welfare harm. Addressing climate change is therefore a major animal welfare priority alongside its human and ecological significance.