Raptors (hawks, owls, eagles, and falcons) are commonly injured through collision and poisoning, and their rehabilitation requires specialized facilities and skills to achieve welfare-positive outcomes.
Raptor rehabilitation welfare requires balancing the welfare costs of captive recovery against the welfare benefits of successful wild release. A wild raptor in a small recovery cage experiences significant stress from confinement and human proximity. This cost is justified only if the outcome is successful wild release — which requires appropriate flight facilities for conditioning and honest assessment of whether release criteria can be met. Permanently injured raptors who cannot be released face a welfare decision about whether captive life as an education animal provides adequate quality of life. This decision requires honest, species-specific assessment rather than defaulting to long-term captivity for all non-releasable animals.