Wild primates face threats from habitat destruction, hunting, and disease that cause individual suffering as well as population declines, making conservation fundamentally a welfare issue.
Wild primates in shrinking, fragmented habitats experience chronic stress from increased predation risk, reduced food availability, and disrupted social structures. When humans encroach on primate habitat, conflict often results in killing. Bushmeat hunting involves wire snares that cause slow, painful deaths and may leave infants orphaned. Orphaned great apes require intensive rehabilitation that may take a decade and still may not result in successful release. Conservation is inseparable from welfare for these cognitively complex, long-lived animals.