Impalas live under intense predation pressure across African savannas. Understanding how predation shapes their welfare and social organization informs conservation management.
Impala welfare under natural predation pressure involves chronic vigilance costs — the physiological expense of sustained alertness. While this is a natural adaptation, human-caused landscape changes that concentrate predators or eliminate escape routes amplify these costs. During the rut, territorial males may lose 20% of body weight from reduced feeding time — a welfare cost of reproductive competition. Predator removal from game areas causes impala population explosions with associated overgrazing and reduced habitat quality. Maintaining natural predator-prey dynamics, while complex, generally produces better welfare outcomes across ecosystems than managing components separately.