Welfare biology is an emerging academic field that applies welfare science principles to wild animal populations, arguing that the vast suffering inherent in nature warrants scientific attention and potentially practical intervention.
The welfare biology perspective challenges the assumption that 'natural' conditions are good conditions for animals. For species with high juvenile mortality rates like most r-selected species, the majority of individuals die painful deaths within days of birth. From a welfare standpoint, this represents an enormous amount of suffering that occurs entirely independently of human activity. While large-scale intervention in nature raises complex ethical questions, the field argues we should at minimum acknowledge this suffering and invest in understanding how it might be reduced.