Large carnivores including wolves, bears, mountain lions, and leopards navigating human-modified landscapes face welfare challenges from persecution, road mortality, and habitat fragmentation that reduce both individual welfare and population viability.
Wild carnivore welfare in human-modified landscapes involves chronic welfare costs from the energy burden of navigating fragmentation, the stress of frequent human proximity, and the mortality risk from roads and persecution. Carnivores that survive in human-dominated landscapes are not unaffected by this context — they bear the welfare costs of vigilance, longer foraging distances, and restricted movement routes continuously. Conservation programs that improve coexistence through non-lethal deterrence, compensation, and corridor infrastructure reduce these welfare costs while also improving conservation outcomes. The welfare and conservation cases for carnivore coexistence are mutually reinforcing, making coexistence programs among the highest-impact investments available to wildlife welfare advocates.