Wildlife at the center of zoonotic disease spillover events — hunted, culled, or displaced as disease reservoirs — suffer severe welfare harms that are often overlooked in public health responses.
When wildlife are identified as disease reservoirs, the human response is often mass culling — a response that causes enormous animal suffering while frequently failing to achieve disease control objectives. Badger culling in the UK and bat-killing following Nipah outbreaks are examples where welfare harms are enormous and evidence for effectiveness is weak or mixed. One Health approaches that integrate wildlife welfare with public health goals represent a more ethical and often more effective alternative.