Field research on wild animals involves capture, marking, sampling, and tracking procedures that cause welfare harm to individual animals, requiring ethical frameworks balancing scientific value against welfare cost.
Field research welfare exists in a less regulated space than laboratory research in most jurisdictions, yet the welfare implications for wild animals can be substantial. Immobilisation risks, trap mortality, marking-induced stress, and tracking device impacts are all real welfare costs that scientific justification should weigh carefully. The rapid development of non-invasive alternatives including eDNA, camera trapping, acoustic monitoring, and remote sensing provides increasingly capable alternatives for many research questions previously requiring animal capture. Institutional review of field research protocols using rigorous welfare criteria would reduce preventable harm.