Rewilding projects are restoring predators and natural processes to British landscapes. The welfare of reintroduced animals and the ecosystems they reshape are central to responsible rewilding practice.
Rewilding creates welfare considerations for both the reintroduced animals and the ecological community they enter. Reintroduced predators face the challenge of establishing territories in unfamiliar environments with potentially abundant but hard-to-catch prey and no learned predator avoidance behaviors in native prey species. The mortality rate during establishment can be significant - juvenile white-tailed eagles and beavers face predation, accident and starvation during their first years. Human-wildlife conflict as predators encounter livestock creates welfare risk - animals killed in conflict or in control operations. The welfare of prey animals is also transformed - deer in rewilded landscapes with restored predators show behavioral changes including more natural vigilance that itself represents a change in welfare state.