White storks and other stork species face welfare threats from wetland drainage reducing foraging habitat, electrocution on power lines, and migratory hazards across their long routes between Europe and Africa.
White stork welfare illustrates how infrastructure choices — particularly power line design — have large and preventable impacts on individual animals. Electrocution on medium-voltage power lines that lack insulation or bird perch guards kills thousands of storks and other large birds annually across Europe and Africa. This is a welfare harm that requires technical solutions already available and affordable — insulating medium-voltage lines and installing perch guards prevents electrocution without compromising utility function. The shift of some Western European stork populations to landfill-based wintering avoids migration hazards but raises nutritional welfare questions about a diet dominated by waste rather than natural prey. Wetland restoration across breeding and wintering ranges improves both foraging welfare and habitat quality for the natural behaviors — probing for frogs, invertebrates, and small vertebrates — that characterize stork feeding behavior.