Wild animal suffering from predation, disease, starvation, and parasites affects the vast majority of all sentient life on earth, raising profound questions about human obligations to animals in nature.
Wild animal suffering challenges comfortable assumptions that nature is a welfare-neutral domain where humans have no obligations. The arithmetic of wild animal life is stark: most individuals die young after experiences of fear, hunger, pain, and parasitism. This does not mean humans should immediately intervene in natural processes — the complexity and ecological interdependence of wild systems makes well-intentioned intervention risky. But it does mean that expanding human infrastructure thoughtfully, supporting research into whether and how wild animal welfare can be improved, and including wild animals in moral consideration represent appropriate responses to a massive and largely unacknowledged source of suffering.