Wild animals live in conditions involving substantial suffering — predation, starvation, disease, and injury — and welfare science is beginning to engage with this ethically.
Wild animal welfare challenges the assumption that nature is inherently good for the animals living in it. From an individual animal perspective, wild life involves substantial negative experiences that are not mitigated by being free or natural. Most wild animals die young and painfully. While most welfare scientists advocate caution about large-scale interventions, there is growing consensus that some targeted welfare improvements — wildlife contraception, vaccine delivery for disease, habitat management for food security — are both feasible and ethically warranted.