Advances in wild animal neuroscience are providing better tools to assess welfare states in free-living animals, informing conservation and management decisions.
Wild animal welfare research has historically been limited by the difficulty of assessing experience in free-living animals. Advances in non-invasive biomarker measurement and behavioral monitoring are changing this. Fecal and hair glucocorticoid levels document chronic stress in wild populations experiencing habitat loss or human disturbance. Behavioral indicators validated against physiological measures allow welfare assessment from observation alone. This research is increasingly applied in conservation contexts to assess welfare consequences of management interventions.