Rewilding projects that reintroduce predators (wolves, lynx, beavers) to ecosystems where they were previously extirpated raise complex welfare questions for both the reintroduced animals and resident wildlife populations.
Rewilding presents a genuine tension between ecosystem-level benefits and individual animal welfare. The reintroduced predators experience capture and release stress; prey populations experience predation risk and stress from increased predator presence. However, the counterfactual is not a welfare-neutral landscape - overgrazing by prey without predators also damages habitats, reduces food availability for many species, and the animals themselves lose the complex predator-avoidance behaviours that their ecology requires. Welfare-conscious rewilding minimises reintroduction stress through soft release protocols, monitors founding populations' health and condition, and manages human-wildlife conflict to prevent retaliatory killing.