Peregrine falcons, red-tailed hawks and other raptors have colonised cities globally, exploiting tall buildings and abundant prey. Urban raptor welfare is shaped by window strikes, rodenticide exposure, habitat quality and human disturbance.
Urban raptors succeed because cities offer abundant prey and warm thermal environments, but they face anthropogenic threats that their rural counterparts avoid. Rodenticide exposure is particularly concerning: second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides accumulate in the food chain, causing sub-lethal effects (reduced hunting ability, increased vulnerability to injury) before eventual death. Glass and vehicle strikes are welfare emergencies for injured birds that require rapid wildlife rehabilitation response. Individual welfare and population welfare are interlinked - each breeding pair lost to rodenticide poisoning is both an individual welfare failure and a conservation concern.