Ptarmigan are highly specialised upland birds adapted to Arctic-alpine conditions, and climate-driven changes to their Scottish mountain habitat represent a growing welfare crisis.
Ptarmigan welfare is threatened by the same camouflage mismatch mechanism affecting mountain hares — white plumage on snow-free ground creates acute predation vulnerability. Unlike hares, ptarmigan cannot easily move to find remaining snow patches. Reduced snow cover also affects food availability — plant communities shift with warming temperatures. The welfare of individual birds in increasingly snow-poor years involves elevated predation stress, impaired thermoregulation at lower altitudes (ptarmigan are physiologically adapted to extreme cold), and nutritional stress from changing plant communities. Scotland's ptarmigan population decline is a direct welfare consequence of climate change experienced at high altitude.