War devastates ecosystems, disrupts wildlife monitoring, and often results in mass abandonment of companion and farm animals. Understanding how conflict affects animals is essential for integrated humanitarian and conservation response.
Armed conflict creates cascading welfare crises for animals across categories. Wild animals face habitat destruction, poaching surges enabled by the collapse of law enforcement, and direct harm from munitions and military activity. Farm animals are abandoned, starved, or killed as agricultural systems collapse. Companion animals lose their human protectors and become urban strays facing violence, starvation, and disease. The welfare response to conflict cannot treat animals as peripheral — in many affected communities, livestock represent livelihoods and food security, making animal welfare integral to humanitarian response. Organizations that integrate animal welfare into disaster and conflict response frameworks are addressing a real and often overlooked dimension of human and animal suffering in war.