Red squirrels face extinction across most of Britain due to competition and disease from introduced grey squirrels, with conservation programs providing direct welfare intervention for surviving populations.
Red squirrels contracting squirrelpox from grey squirrels experience rapidly fatal disease with ulcerating skin lesions and neurological symptoms — a death involving significant suffering. Individual welfare harm is compounded by conservation significance — each red squirrel death in remaining strongholds represents a population under existential pressure. Supporting conservation programs that maintain grey squirrel buffer zones around red squirrel populations directly reduces the welfare burden of squirrelpox disease and provides the conditions for red squirrel populations to stabilize and recover.