Rewilding projects in the UK introduce keystone species and reduce management, creating complex welfare implications for both introduced animals and existing wildlife.
Rewilding creates welfare challenges alongside its ecological benefits. Introduced animals face welfare risks from unfamiliar environments, predation, and potential starvation while adapting. Natural regulation through predation, which rewilding philosophically embraces, involves welfare costs to prey animals that managed culling distributes differently. Beavers introduced to rivers create wetland habitat benefits but may displace other species locally. The welfare ethics of rewilding require accepting some individual welfare costs for population and ecosystem benefits. Welfare-informed rewilding projects monitor individual introduced animals, provide temporary support during establishment, and accept that natural processes involve welfare trade-offs.