Wild animal welfare

Wild animal welfare is the welfare of non-human animals under natural conditions.conditions, and the study of interventions aimed at improving the welfare of these animals.

Wild animals outnumber animals in factory farms by several orders of magnitude.^[1] In spite ofDespite this, the welfare of animals in the wild has received very limited attention. A comprehensive online bibliography in this area lists about fifty publications, most of which are published online or in relatively unknown journals.^[2] Wild animal welfare is thus a highly important and neglected focus area.^[3]

As of yet, there have been no serious attempts to improve wild animal welfare, perhaps because this appears to have low tractability. SomeHowever, some in the effective altruism community, however,community have argued that tractability is higher than it might first appear.^[4] Proposed interventions include advocacy for wild animals and research into potential solutions.^[5]

invertebrateanimal welfare | crustacean welfare biology | farmed animal welfare | fish welfare | crustaceaninvertebrate welfare | moral circle expansion | farmed animal welfare | animal welfare biology

invertebrate welfare | welfare biology | fish welfare | crustacean welfare | moral circle expansion | farmed animal welfare | animal welfare

Wild animals outnumber animals infactory farms by several orders of magnitude.[1] In spite of this, the welfare of animals in the wild has received very limited attention and concern; aattention. A comprehensive online bibliography in this area lists about fifty publications, most of which are published online or in relatively unknown journals.[2] Wild animal welfare is thus a highlyimportant andneglected focus area.[3]

As of yet, there have been no serious attempts to improve wild animal welfare, but the issue currentlyperhaps because this appears to have relatively low tractability. Some in the effective altruism community, however, have argued that this impressiontractability is mistaken.higher than it might first appear.[4] Interventions that have been proposed Proposed interventions include doing advocacy for wild animals, supportinganimals and research into potential solutions, and building general capacity.solutions.[5]

Faria, Catia (2022) Animal Ethics in the Wild: Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rowe, Abraham (2020) The scale of direct human impact on invertebrates, Effective Altruism Forum, September 2.

Spurgeon, Jamie (2022) Helping wild animals, Giving What We Can.

External links

Wild animal suffering video course. An online course about wild animal welfare, by Animal Ethics.

Animal Charity Evaluators (2022) Why wild animals?, Animal Charity Evaluators, February.
An outline of the main considerations for prioritizing wild animal welfare.

Stafforini, Pablo (2016) Wild animal welfare: a bibliography, Pablo Stafforini's Blog, June 6 (updated 28 April 2021).
A somewhat outdated bibliography of publications on wild animal welfare.