New monitoring technologies including GPS collars, biologgers, and remote cameras are transforming our ability to assess wildlife welfare in the field.
Wildlife monitoring technology is transforming welfare research by enabling non-invasive assessment of wild animal welfare states at the individual level. Where previous research relied on brief capture-and-release assessments, modern biologgers can record physiological welfare indicators continuously across seasons and habitats. This allows researchers to understand how different environmental conditions, management interventions, and seasonal changes affect individual animal welfare — creating an evidence base that would have been impossible to generate with previous technology. Investment in monitoring technology development and deployment is therefore a high-leverage contribution to advancing wildlife welfare science.