Understanding the welfare challenges facing amphibians — the most threatened vertebrate class — including chytrid fungus, habitat loss, and the welfare considerations of captive populations.
Amphibian welfare occupies a difficult position in welfare discourse: their phylogenetic distance from mammals creates uncertainty about their capacity for suffering, yet their behavioral responses to injury, their complex life histories, and their ecological significance argue for welfare concern. The chytrid crisis represents one of the largest welfare catastrophes in vertebrate history — billions of individual animals have died from this emerging infectious disease since its global spread began in the 1970s. Welfare concern for amphibians encompasses both the individual suffering of disease-affected animals and the conservation imperative of protecting populations from extinction. Captive assurance colonies that prevent extinction while maintaining welfare through appropriate husbandry represent the most defensible form of captive amphibian management.