Rewilding projects restore natural processes and predator-prey dynamics to landscapes, creating complex welfare trade-offs between individual animal suffering and ecological health.
Rewilding presents the most challenging welfare philosophical question in conservation: does restoring natural predator-prey dynamics improve or worsen overall animal welfare? Individual prey animals face more predation under rewilding than in managed landscapes - deer killed by lynx experience welfare harm. But the ecological complexity created by rewilding supports greater biodiversity, reducing the habitat loss that is the primary driver of wildlife population decline. There is no neutral option - managed landscapes involve culling; rewilded landscapes involve predation. The welfare question is which system distributes welfare harm and benefit more broadly across all species. Most welfare biologists conclude that restoring ecological function produces better aggregate outcomes.