Migratory birds face an extraordinary gauntlet of threats along their flyways, from hunting and light pollution to collisions and habitat loss. Protecting welfare across the full migration route requires international coordination.
Migratory birds experience a continuous series of welfare stressors across their annual cycle. Collision events cause traumatic injury and death on a massive scale; birds that survive building strikes often suffer concussions, wing injuries, and disorientation. Illegal hunting along Mediterranean and East Asian flyways subjects millions of birds to wounding and death outside any regulatory protection. The physiological demands of long-distance migration — crossing deserts, seas, and mountain ranges — leave little margin for the additional stressors of habitat loss at stopover sites. Welfare interventions must therefore operate at multiple scales: building design guidelines to reduce collision mortality, light pollution ordinances, enforcement of hunting regulations, and international habitat protection agreements all contribute to reducing the welfare burden on migratory species.