Rewilding projects reintroduce species to former habitats, with both welfare opportunities and challenges for individual animals involved in translocations and population establishment.
Rewilding welfare involves a tension between the population-level and ecosystem benefits of species reintroduction and the welfare costs to individual animals in translocations. Capture, transport, and release are all stressful. Translocated animals must establish in unfamiliar territory, find food, and avoid predators without the learned knowledge that wild-born animals develop. Some individuals fail to thrive and die from starvation, predation, or stress. Welfare-conscious rewilding minimizes handling stress, acclimates animals before full release where possible, and monitors post-release welfare through telemetry to enable early intervention for struggling individuals.