Chytridiomycosis caused by Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis has driven over 90 amphibian extinctions. The welfare of infected amphibians and conservation of remaining populations require integrated responses.
Amphibian chytridiomycosis represents a welfare crisis at extraordinary scale: millions of individual animals across hundreds of species experiencing disease causing behavioral changes, physiological distress, and death. The welfare of infected individual amphibians is often overlooked in the conservation focus on population decline, but the disease causes genuine suffering in sentient animals before death. Conservation responses that preserve populations through captive assurance colonies serve both conservation and welfare goals by preventing extinction events that would deny future generations of these animals the possibility of welfare-positive wild lives. The development of probiotic treatments represents a welfare intervention that could reduce individual suffering while supporting population recovery.