Wild animals experience significant suffering from predation, disease, parasitism, and starvation. The emerging field of wild animal welfare confronts what this means for our moral responsibilities.
Wild animal welfare confronts what may be the most profound and difficult question in animal ethics — what is our moral responsibility for the enormous amount of suffering that occurs in nature independent of human action? Wild animals suffer continuously from predation, parasitism, disease, and starvation in ways that vastly exceed the scale of farming or experimentation. The emerging field of wild animal welfare takes this suffering seriously and asks whether and how humans should intervene. Current consensus supports prioritizing reduction of human-caused wildlife suffering (habitat destruction, pollution, vehicle strikes) and the development of evidence-based interventions for tractable natural suffering (vaccination programs, contraception for population cycles) while avoiding interventions that cause more harm than good through ecosystem disruption. This field is expanding the moral circle of animal welfare consideration to include the vast majority of animals — those living in nature.