Wild animal welfare biology applies welfare science concepts to free-living animals. Understanding wild animal suffering is essential for evidence-based policies addressing human impacts on wildlife.
Wild animal welfare biology asks difficult questions about the nature and scale of suffering in free-living animal populations. Natural causes including predation, parasitism, and starvation cause suffering on an enormous scale. Understanding and engaging with this reality is important for honest welfare advocacy, even when the conclusions are uncomfortable. Human responsibility to reduce human-caused wild animal suffering is clearer than responsibility for natural suffering, but the field is evolving.