Underaddressed animal-welfare issues in conservation

Abstract

Much progress has been made toward assessing and improving animal welfare in conservation. However, several glaring knowledge gaps remain where animal-welfare concerns exist but animal-welfare studies have not been performed in politically sensitive contexts. Based on contemporary issues in Australia, we identified 4 topics that require more research: animal-welfare oversight for operations designated as management (as opposed to research); animal-welfare impacts of biological agents used to control invasive animals; welfare of animals hunted recreationally; and animal-welfare impacts associated with indigenous wildlife use. Animal-welfare science may be applied to these sensitive topics thr..