Compassionate conservation is a growing movement that challenges traditional conservation's acceptance of lethal control, arguing that individual animal welfare must be central to conservation goals.
Compassionate conservation challenges conservationists to take individual animal welfare seriously, not just population-level outcomes. Introducing invasive species management often involves large-scale killing programs where individual suffering is accepted as collateral. The hedgehog cull on Scottish islands illustrates the dilemma - hedgehogs harm ground-nesting birds, but translocation (with welfare costs) is an alternative to lethal control. The movement does not require pacifism but demands that welfare costs be counted and alternatives genuinely explored before lethal methods are chosen.