Harbor seal rehabilitation programs release thousands of animals annually — evidence-based assessment of rehabilitation outcomes informs welfare-positive decision-making for individual animals.
Harbor seal rehabilitation welfare decisions require balancing individual welfare during treatment against release outcome probabilities. Animals that meet release criteria and show equivalent post-release survival to wild-born animals justify the welfare investment in treatment. Animals with severe injuries or poor prognosis require welfare-based euthanasia assessment — prolonged treatment of animals unlikely to survive or thrive post-release causes more suffering than early humane death. The outcome data from satellite-tagged released seals is essential for making these decisions with evidence rather than optimism. Rehabilitation centers that implement systematic post-release monitoring contribute to the population-level evidence base that improves sector-wide release criteria and welfare decision-making for future patients.