Summary
Since our last update on November 19, Wild Animal Initiative has progressed towards our annual fundraising goals and is still looking to raise additional funds by the end of the year to reach our goal.
So far, we've raised $190,000 of our $240,000 goal from donors giving $10,000 or less. We hope to raise an additional $50,000 by December 31. As stated in our August 6 EA Forum post, our organizational strategy is responsive to the total amount raised and how many people donate, so smaller donors will have an exceptionally high impact this year.
With that in mind, we would like to share an update regarding our plans for 2025.
Plans for 2025
In 2025, Wild Animal Initiative will continue pursuing its work to build an academic field dedicated to wild animal welfare science, advancing its three programs: Research, Outreach, and Grants. Within each program, we’ve highlighted some specific ways our team intends to use current and new funding below. Although we will unlikely accomplish every one of these goals within the year, we will explore and pursue as many as our resources and capacity allow.
Research
Starting new research projects and publishing new papers
- Long-term biologging data: Reanalyzing an existing data set to determine whether certain situations that might have been stressful for the tagged animals are associated with behavioral changes that indicate poor welfare. We are looking for a dataset and collaborators.
- Wild insect welfare: Conducting an analysis of agricultural pest control to better understand the best targets for welfare interventions — first identifying scientific gaps and then developing research plans to help fill them.
- Academics’ beliefs and values: Conducting a survey to learn about academics’ beliefs and values pertaining to different aspects of wild animal welfare.
- Reproductive buffering adaptations: Examining behaviors and traits that develop to protect and stabilize animals’ reproductive success in the midst of environmental or physiological challenges, we will investigate how these adaptations could relate to welfare.
- Urban ecology: A study of the overlap between the field of urban ecology and the field of wild animal welfare science.
Continuing ongoing research projects
- House sparrow research: Our house sparrow welfare research project will continue with the collection and analysis of field data. See here for an introduction to the project, and here for a December 2024 update.
- Challenges for behavioral ecologists: We have surveyed behavioral ecologists to find out why it’s challenging for them to integrate the study of welfare into their work. We will finalize this social study and produce a related paper with the findings.
- Contraception modeling: We are developing a model to show how wildlife contraception and density dependence can interact.
Publishing new review papers
- Historical interventions: Such as New World screwworm eradication or wildlife vaccination programs
- Captive animal welfare science: How its insights can be applied to the field of wild animal welfare science
- Wild fish welfare
Presenting our research at conferences
Outreach
Collaborations
- With veterinarians and veterinary students: Working on establishing a formal affiliation with UniLaSalle’s veterinary school so that we can contribute to publications and mentor students.
- With wildlife management organizations: Scoping the value of working with these kinds of groups to introduce them to wild animal welfare concepts. Although we are highly confident this will ultimately be a necessary step for applying wild animal welfare science, we are uncertain whether now is the right time, since the field is still in its “emerging” phase.
Resources and support for researchers
- Wild animal welfare science curriculum: Planning and developing an online course to introduce students and early-career researchers to key concepts in wild animal welfare science.
- Networking events: Like in 2024, hosting virtual coffee hours and in-person meetups to help our grantees and other wild animal welfare researchers connect socially and professionally.
- Workshop: Delivering an updated iteration of the Methods Workshop we offered in 2023.
Grants
Since launching our Grants Program in 2021, we’ve posted one or two calls for proposals per year. Each CFP has had a theme and offered grants within a specific dollar range, whether relatively large or relatively small.
In 2025, we are updating the way we distribute grants. Each CFP will now be more flexible, accepting proposals for research projects on a variety of topics, and offering grants of all sizes up to $100,000 each time. We’ll soon announce our first cohort of grantees with this new structure.
Conclusion & Call to Action
As we look ahead to 2025, we're not just focusing on the total amount we raise but also on building a more resilient and diverse funding base. This approach means your support, especially if you're not a multi-million-dollar foundation, will significantly impact our strategic decisions for the coming year.
After reflecting on the lessons learned from the unexpected OP phase-out of WAW, we are committed to reducing our reliance on any single funder. This is why every donation, regardless of its size, plays a vital role in helping us build a stronger, more sustainable foundation for our work.
So, whether you're considering a gift of $10 or $10,000, know that your contribution will significantly influence our ability to pursue groundbreaking research, expand our outreach, and fund innovative projects in the field of wild animal welfare. Your support now will help us build a stronger, more diversified organization ready to tackle the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in 2025 and beyond.
Thanks for sharing, @Casey Darnley! If someone donates 100 $ to Wild Animal Initiative (WAI) today, how much will support invertebrates instead of vertebrates?
Thanks for the question, Vasco. I apologize for the delay in my response. I somehow missed this question when you first posted it.
It's a bit tough to answer because our research isn't just about generating findings for the specific animals we study- it's about building foundational knowledge and tools that can be applied much more broadly, across taxa. We're committed to ensuring that the field of wild animal welfare science meaningfully includes invertebrates because we believe the field won't progress adequately if their welfare isn't seriously considered.
When someone donates $100 to WAI today, that gift is allocated to our general operating budget, not separate funds for invertebrate or vertebrate projects. Because we don't receive much restricted funding, every dollar supports the full range of WAW field-building activities, encompassing both vertebrates and invertebrates. Some of our research does directly focus on insects (Field tests of bee welfare, Measuring health and frailty in wild insects, Improving the welfare of wild and captive animals with integrated in-situ and ex-situ behavioural monitoring, Improving the welfare of farmland invertebrates), while other work, such as our general outreach and research, includes invertebrates as part of a broader focus. For example, Michael Beaulieu's recent research article on oxidative status included insects but was not focused exclusively on them.
Rather than thinking of a donation as being split between vertebrates and invertebrates, it might be more accurate to think of the "invertebrate impact" of a donation as reflecting your confidence that our field-building work will help ensure invertebrate welfare is taken seriously as the science advances.
Thanks for clarifying, Casey! That makes sense.
Hi @Casey Darnley.
I would still find it useful to know how historical funding has been allocated across animal populations, and, ideally, about the allocation of marginal funding.
Hi @Vasco Grilo🔸
If you're hoping for a precise breakdown, such as "X% to vertebrates, Y% to invertebrates," our grants program history shows $4.9M allocated to vertebrates (including fish/rodents) and $0.46M allocated to invertebrates. That said, over the past two years, our support for invertebrate projects has nearly doubled compared to our first two years (1.85x). We've started seeing more strong proposals focused on invertebrates and fish, with researchers telling us they heard about us as a group keen on invertebrate welfare, which is a genuinely encouraging sign that our field-building efforts are working.
However, those numbers don't fully capture what we're actually trying to achieve. Many of our grants and internal research projects develop methods, data, and tools that serve wild animals broadly, rather than focusing on a single specific taxon. Many projects start with a particular species but have much broader applications as the science develops. Many of our grants are meta-projects (e.g., modeling frameworks or welfare measurement tools) with potential that extends beyond vertebrates alone.
Our goal is to establish a research ecosystem that benefits all wild animals, including invertebrates, while striking a balance between pushing new research areas and keeping people excited to contribute. Species-type tracking misses how resources multiply and ripple through the field.
We want to be mindful of how we spend our time, so unless there are significant updates or developments, we won't be posting more on this thread. We are always happy to reconnect down the line if there's something meaningful to add.
Thanks for clarifying, and providing a breakdown, Casey!