Rewilding programmes reintroduce predators and restore natural processes to landscapes. While beneficial for biodiversity, rewilding raises questions about the welfare of prey animals experiencing predation and natural mortality.
Rewilding raises profound questions for animal welfare philosophy. Restored ecosystems with functional predator-prey dynamics involve real suffering: animals are injured and killed by predators, die of starvation in harsh winters, and suffer from parasites and disease. Whether this suffering is worse or better than the baseline of degraded ecosystems without natural predators is genuinely contested. Some welfare philosophers argue that predation causes enormous suffering and that reducing predator populations would reduce suffering overall; others argue that natural ecosystems represent the best feasible environment for wild animals and that supporting biodiversity leads to better average welfare outcomes. These questions deserve serious philosophical attention rather than dismissal.