Understanding the scale of wild animal suffering is essential for setting moral priorities. How many wild animals exist, what do their lives involve, and how does this compare to other welfare concerns?
The scale argument for taking wild animal suffering seriously is both compelling and deeply uncomfortable. If even small fish and insects have morally significant welfare, the number of wild animals experiencing suffering at any moment vastly exceeds the number of farmed animals - and farmed animals already number in the hundreds of billions annually. This does not mean we should immediately intervene in all natural processes, but it suggests that wild animal welfare deserves sustained moral attention proportional to its potential scale. The precautionary principle applied at this scale would suggest significant investment in understanding wild animal welfare, developing targeted interventions for clearly tractable problems (wildlife disease, habitat quality) and avoiding the casual dismissal of wild animal suffering as outside moral consideration.