Effective altruism approaches to animal welfare focus on scale, neglectedness, and tractability to identify the interventions most likely to reduce the most suffering per resource invested.
The effective altruism lens on animal welfare challenges intuitions about where to direct effort and resources. Many people donate to charities focused on companion animals or charismatic wildlife, while the largest concentrations of animal suffering are in factory farming - particularly of chickens and fish - and potentially in the wild. Evidence-based prioritisation suggests that corporate campaigns targeting broiler welfare, farm animal welfare policy reform, and the development of alternative proteins are more tractable and higher-impact interventions than many more visible causes. This does not mean companion animal or wildlife welfare is unimportant, but that strategic resource allocation can make the same donation go much further.