Wildlife disease surveillance programs monitor and respond to diseases affecting wild populations. Their welfare implications for individual animals are an important but often overlooked dimension.
Wildlife disease surveillance sits at the intersection of public health, conservation, and individual animal welfare. Surveillance activities - trapping, sampling, and euthanasia of sick animals - all have welfare impacts that need to be minimised. The decision to treat versus euthanase individual sick wild animals requires honest assessment of prognosis, suffering duration, and likelihood of successful rehabilitation. For highly contagious diseases like HPAI, humane euthanasia of severely affected birds is often the most welfare-positive response, preventing prolonged suffering while reducing disease spread risk.