Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Welfare Principles

Wildlife rehabilitation aims to return injured and orphaned wild animals to a life in the wild, but balancing individual animal welfare with successful rehabilitation outcomes requires careful decision-making frameworks.

Key Facts

Wildlife rehabilitators care for over 1 million individual animals annually across Europe and North America combined.
Decisions about whether to attempt rehabilitation, maintain in care, or euthanize require assessment of the animal's survival prospects and quality of life.
Zoonotic disease management is a critical safety and welfare component of wildlife care.
Habituation to humans during care can impair release success, particularly for prey species and species requiring flight responses.
Financial constraints at most wildlife rehabilitation centres significantly limit the care available, affecting welfare outcomes.

Welfare Considerations

Wildlife in rehabilitation exist in a uniquely difficult welfare space: they are wild animals experiencing the combined stresses of injury or illness, captivity, human contact, and medical procedures. The welfare-best outcome is always a swift return to the wild — but not at the cost of releasing an animal that cannot survive. Clear euthanasia criteria applied humanely when survival is unlikely or quality of life is irrecoverable are an important component of welfare-oriented rehabilitation practice.

What You Can Do

Support your local wildlife rehabilitation centre through donations of food, materials, or volunteer time.
If you find an injured wild animal, contact a rehabilitation centre before intervening to get appropriate guidance.
Advocate for statutory funding and training standards for wildlife rehabilitation centres in your jurisdiction.
Create wildlife-friendly garden habitat to reduce common causes of rescue including window strikes and domestic cat predation.