Satellite tracking technology is revealing how individual animals experience their environments, enabling welfare assessment across species from whales to birds to large carnivores.
Satellite tracking has transformed understanding of wild animal welfare by enabling non-invasive observation of behaviour and physiology across vast spatial scales. For the first time, researchers can document how individual animals respond to disturbances including wind farms, roads, agricultural operations, and human recreation, providing evidence for welfare-based planning decisions. The technology also enables welfare monitoring of migratory species across their full range, revealing threats along routes and in wintering grounds that were previously hidden. Tag development must balance data quality against the welfare cost of attachment.