Red squirrels face welfare threats from competition and disease spread by the introduced grey squirrel, and conservation management involves difficult trade-offs between the welfare of both species.
Red squirrel conservation creates a genuine welfare dilemma. Red squirrels experience welfare harm from squirrelpox - a painful, fatal disease causing lesions and death over weeks. Grey squirrels cause competitive stress through food stealing and territory displacement. The conservation response - lethal grey squirrel control - causes welfare harm to individual grey squirrels, who did not choose to be introduced and are not morally culpable for their ecological impact. Humane control methods including CO2 gas chambers are considered more welfare-positive than trapping and shooting, but no lethal method is without welfare cost. The conflict highlights the tension between individual animal welfare and species-level conservation.