The Center for Wild Animal Welfare (CWAW) is a new policy advocacy organization, working to improve the lives of wild animals today and build support for wild animal welfare policy. We’re now fundraising for our first year, and the next $60,000 will be matched 1:1 by a generous supporter. 

We’ve already started engaging policymakers on wild animal-friendly urban infrastructure (e.g. bird-safe glass). In 2026, we plan to keep engaging on urban infrastructure; start working on additional policy areas like fertility control and pesticide policy; and pursue agenda setting (e.g. publishing a State of Wild Animal Welfare Policy report).

Wild animal welfare is one of the world’s most important and neglected issues. Governments routinely make decisions that affect trillions of wild animals without considering their individual wellbeing. We want to change this: CWAW is one of the first organizations in the world dedicated to ensuring policymakers consider the individual welfare of wild animals. Our focus on near term policy will help wild animals now, and also build future support by proving that wild animal welfare is a legitimate and tractable policy concern.

CWAW is co-founded by Richard Parr MBE, a former policy adviser to the UK Prime Minister, and Ben Stevenson, a researcher with Animal Ask. It is fiscally sponsored by Rethink Priorities. We’re pleased to have the support of Wild Animal Initiative, the NYU Wild Animal Welfare Program, and Animal Ethics. 

We’re now fundraising for our 2026 budget and a generous donor will 1:1 match the next $60,000 we raise. Marginal donations will make a real difference to the success of this project. If this donation opportunity feels like a good fit for you, then please consider donating at www.every.org/center-for-wild-animal-welfare or reaching out to us at team@wildanimalwelfare.org for more information. Tax-deductible donation options are available in a number of countries including the US, UK, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, and many others - please see the end of this post for full details. 

Why support wild animal welfare policy?

Wild animal welfare is one of the world’s biggest problems.

Humans hurt and kill wild animals, both by accident and by design, at a staggering scale. Even more suffering comes from nature itself: wild animals suffer immense hardships like disease, hunger and harsh weather. If they were humans, it would be uncontroversial to say they deserved medicine, food and shelter.

Wild animal welfare is an inescapable problem: everything we do has ripple effects on wild animals – including efforts to help humans, domesticated animals, and future generations.

It’s also one of the world’s most neglected problems.

The world spends more than 40x as much on farm animal welfare, or ~500x as much on US companion animal welfare.

Wild animal welfare advocates have mostly focused on two important strategies: wild animal welfare science, and increasing awareness and support. As well as more funding for this important work, we need new projects that test different theories of change – especially projects that complement existing efforts by translating insights from wild animal welfare science into tangible change for animals.

Policy is a high-leverage and tractable way to help.

Policy is one of the most important levers to improve wild animal welfare because:

• Government policy already affects a huge number of wild animals in dramatic ways. In the near term, policy changes can improve the lives of many wild animals.
• Looking to the future, only governments will have the capacity and authority to make large-scale changes affecting wild animals. In the long run, influencing public policy is a necessary condition for significantly improving wild animal welfare at scale.

We expect that it’s politically tractable to promote wild animal welfare policy. Policymakers have already supported some wild animal-friendly measures like the UK’s Glue Traps (Offences) Act and New York City’s experimental use of rodent birth control. In fact, there’s support for even more consideration of wild animal welfare in policymaking:

• The UK’s Animal Sentience Committee recently issued a statement asserting that policymakers should consider how their proposals will impact “the lives and welfare of countless wild animals”.
• The Scottish government published a position statement on wildlife and animal welfare, which said: “it is important that when management decisions are taken which could impact on wildlife, the welfare of the individual involved is taken fully into account”.
• Many members of the public, who see themselves as ‘animal lovers’, might be more enthusiastic about helping wild animals than helping farmed animals.

And, for the first time, it’s starting to look practically tractable to improve wild animal welfare in the near-term. Wild animal welfare scientists are beginning to identify concrete ways to help wild animals, including more humane approaches to population management (which can reduce suffering without causing many ecological ripple effects about which we feel clueless).^[1] For example: scientists are testing contraceptives to manage wild animal populations without hurting and killing them. (Cameron Meyer Shorb from Wild Animal Initiative discusses rodent contraceptives as a candidate for a near-term intervention here.)

Supporting near-term interventions can address real suffering that’s occurring right now, improving the lives of real, sentient animals. It’s also important to support them because they complement existing efforts from wild animal welfare advocates:

• When we trial interventions, we can gather information about their effects. This will inform wild animal welfare science.
• When we run interventions, we take the ideas to entirely new audiences (e.g. policymakers) and demonstrate that we really can help wild animals. This will increase awareness and support for the values and ideas of wild animal welfare.

It’s the right time to get to work.

There are still some crucial uncertainties to resolve – like questions about invertebrate sentience, the quality of life in the wild, and the unpredictability of ecological change. CWAW will act thoughtfully under uncertainty, such as by preferring interventions that look robustly good across different worldviews. But wild animal welfare is too urgent a problem to wait for perfect information. We believe:

• Building relationships with policymakers and securing their support takes time, and needs to happen alongside – not after – further progress in wild animal welfare science.
• Our work can help reduce uncertainty, such as by providing testing grounds for different ways of assessing indirect effects.
• Transformative AI makes this even more urgent. If it’s built, it could accelerate wild animal welfare science, enhance our ability to implement interventions, and lock in existing values. So it’s important that powerful decision-makers are aligned with our concern for wild animal welfare.

What we’ve achieved already

For the last few months, working as volunteers, we have had some success engaging UK policymakers on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, including:

• Securing the tabling of two amendments which, if passed, would mandate the systemic consideration of wild animal welfare during construction and conservation activities.
• Supporting an existing amendment which would mandate bird-safe glass in new buildings. We provided advice and research on European bird-safe glass legislation and regulation, and generated positively-framed media coverage (e.g. in The Guardian).
• Securing sympathetic discussion of wild animal welfare in the UK Parliament (recording here, and transcript here). A speaker said:

“The committee warned that the Bill appears to conceptualise “biodiversity” or “the environment” as abstract entities without recognising that these are populated by individual animals capable of experiencing pain, distress and suffering. Wild animal welfare is aligned with but distinct from species conservation. Rather than protecting species at the population level, it is about improving well-being at the individual level.”

We have also secured media coverage calling for the UK government to scale up efforts to vaccinate wild animals against deadly diseases. Crucially and novelly, our quote in this piece framed the issue around the welfare of sentient wild animals themselves, as well as human benefits.

We believe that raising these issues to policymakers and the media, and securing positive statements in Parliament and the press, will contribute to increased support for wild animal welfare policy. Our specific amendments have not passed, but have made it more likely that  the issues will be addressed through regulation in the future. We see this as proof of concept that we can make progress on policy issues to improve wild animal lives, and spread key values and ideas to build concern for wild animal welfare.

What we’ll do in 2026

Next year, as well as continued engagement on urban infrastructure, we’ll work on new policy areas such as fertility control and pesticide policy. We’re also exploring high-level agenda-setting opportunities, such as publishing a State of Wild Animal Welfare Policy report.

To advance these priorities, we will engage with politicians, policymakers, the media, and representatives from animal and nature NGOs. We will also produce policy briefings and research reports, which translate wild animal welfare science into actionable policy recommendations. For now, we’re focused on policy opportunities in the UK. This is our comparative advantage, and the UK is an exceptionally promising country (we have a strong history of animal welfare law, and the Animal Sentience Committee’s remit includes wild animal welfare). Nevertheless, we’re open to working on promising opportunities elsewhere and, in the future, we think it’s important that wild animal welfare policy advocates explore scope-sensitive opportunities across the world.

We selected these focus areas – after extensive research and consultation with wild animal welfare experts – because we believe some policy options look realistic, robust and helpful. That is:

• Tractable in the near term (e.g. wild animal welfare scientists have a recommendation, and there’s an upcoming consultation or policy window), and;
• Robustly positive across a range of worldviews (i.e. we seek to minimize backfire risks where possible, including individual and population-level risks), and;
• High in expected value, and/or helpful for spreading our values.

That said, we’re willing and able to pivot our policy asks if research surfaces new intervention recommendations, if new windows of political opportunity open, or if we identify unanticipated risks. Ben is currently collaborating with Rethink Priorities on a database of near-term wild animal welfare interventions, and we expect that this will inform our priorities.

Why is fertility control realistic, robust and helpful?

• Researchers are developing and improving contraceptives for wild animals including rodents, pigeons and squirrels. Although we need to improve efficacy, some contraceptives have received regulatory approval in the US and Europe.
• The UK government has already invested in wildlife contraceptives (e.g. funding research into oral bait contraceptives for grey squirrels). Fertility control benefits conservation and “pest” management, as well as wild animal welfare. Therefore, it seems politically tractable in the UK.
• We will need to continually monitor inadvertent effects on individuals and ecosystems, but early research suggests fertility control measures can be undertaken with little impact on non-target species.
• Fertility control directly helps wild animals by replacing killing as a wildlife management strategy – especially slow, painful poisonings. In the long run, fertility control could contribute to welfare-centric population management, which could reduce risks from resource scarcity and/or overpopulation.

Our policy asks might include: research funding for priority species beyond grey squirrels; expedited regulatory approval, whether for contraceptives under development or contraceptives already approved in other jurisdictions (if we were confident they were effective); and guidance (e.g. to local authorities) promoting contraceptives as a humane wildlife management strategy.

Why is pesticide policy realistic, robust and helpful?

• The UK government has already demonstrated willingness to ban pesticides that harm wildlife and the environment (e.g. metaldehyde slug pellets, second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides in open spaces, and neonicotinoids).
• The government has recently established a Pesticides National Action Plan. This establishes a target to reduce overall risk from pesticides and provides a window of political opportunity.
• We recognise risks for insecticide policy. We are uncertain about what life is like for different species of wild insect, and uncertain about the most ethical way to manage their populations. Therefore, we will tend to focus on the most robust asks, like humane pesticides, that look good across different views in population ethics.
• Humane pesticides help wild animals by decreasing the intensity and duration of suffering at death. Replacing particularly harmful rodenticides would achieve a significant reduction in rodent suffering. And, with plausibly quadrillions of insects killed each year, the scale of suffering caused by insecticides is effectively inconceivable.

Our policy asks include: a full ban on second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides; funding to develop humane pesticides, especially insecticides; and integrating welfare considerations in the pesticide approval process, including target species welfare.

How will CWAW use marginal funding?

CWAW is not yet a fully-funded project. We have enough funding for a very skeletal Minimum Viable Product, but we need additional financial support to run this project properly.

We will use additional funding to:

• increase the hours that our team can spend on the project
• set up a website
• attend highly valuable conferences (e.g. the International Conference on Wildlife Fertility Control)
• cover operational costs
• set aside a contingency budget.

We’re asking for support from EA Forum readers. A generous donor has committed to match the next $60,000 in donations at a 1:1 ratio. Marginal donations will make a significant difference and help us execute this project to its fullest potential.

Who we are

Richard Parr MBE has previously served as Special Adviser to the UK Prime Minister and Secretary of State for International Development, and as Managing Director of The Good Food Institute Europe. Richard knows how to drive policy change and set up a high-performing organisation.

Ben Stevenson is an animal welfare researcher who has worked for Animal Ask and Rethink Priorities. He’s currently working on a project with Bob Fischer to identify near-term wild animal welfare interventions.

Endorsements

Cameron Meyer Shorb, Wild Animal Initiative:

“I strongly support this proposal, and I encourage funders to donate to it (while sustaining support for academic field-building efforts).

“For several years, we've believed that the best next step for the nascent wild animal welfare movement would be to start engaging policymakers. Richard and Ben have consulted with us extensively, and we've been really impressed with their approach. They see the opportunity for short-term wins, but they're optimizing for long-term strategy. They have a nuanced understanding of the risks to this work, and they seem to have a healthy balance of caution and ambition. Finally, Richard brings a level of experience, skill, and connections that would be an asset to any policy initiative, and is, to our knowledge, unparalleled in the wild animal welfare movement. 

“While success is far from guaranteed in such a neglected space, wild animal welfare policy is an important area to explore, and this seems to be one of the best possible teams taking one of the best possible approaches. I am excited to see what they will accomplish, so I hope this proposal gets funded in full.”

Jeff Sebo, NYU Wild Animal Welfare Program: 

“I am pleased to endorse this proposal for the Center for Wild Animal Welfare. A dedicated policy initiative is exactly what the wild animal welfare movement needs alongside academic research. While the NYU Wild Animal Welfare Program can sponsor research and outreach about wild animal welfare in law and policy, this Center will be able to translate that knowledge into practical change much more effectively than we could do alone. Their emphasis on clear, appealing asks is the right way to build policymaker support, and their work will complement our efforts to integrate wild animal welfare into urban planning and other local policies. Richard and Ben are exceptionally well qualified to lead this next step, and I believe they have the vision and skills to be highly effective champions for wild animal welfare. This is a very strong philanthropic opportunity, and I am delighted to support it.”

How to help

You can help the Center for Wild Animal Welfare by donating to our 2026 budget. Your donation will make a real difference to the success of this project, and your support will be matched 1:1 by a generous donor (up to $60,000).

You can donate at www.every.org/center-for-wild-animal-welfare or reach out to us at team@wildanimalwelfare.org for more information.

• Donations through this platform are tax deductible in the US.
• Supporters based in the UK can claim Gift Aid by donating to Rethink Priorities through Giving What We Can, then forwarding their receipt to development@rethinkpriorities.org and team@wildanimalwelfare.org to flag that their donation should be earmarked for CWAW.
• Supporters based in the Netherlands can make tax deductible donations by donating to Rethink Priorities through Giving What We Can, then forwarding their receipt to development@rethinkpriorities.org and team@wildanimalwelfare.org to flag that their donation should be earmarked for CWAW.
• We should be able to faciliate tax deductible donations for supporters based in Canada wishing to donate at least $2000, supporters based in Germany wishing to donate more than €5,000, and supporters based in Switzerland wishing to donate more than 5,000 CHF. We may be able to help supporters in other regions too. If you would like to explore tax deductible options, please reach out to team@wildanimalwelfare.org.

If you have any further questions or uncertainties, we’d be delighted to chat, and to share with you our full funding proposal document, which goes into additional depth on our theory of change. Thank you!

The entire wild animal welfare space is intensely funding-constrained. If you agree that it’s important to support wild animal welfare, but you’re not persuaded to support CWAW specifically, we would encourage you to consider supporting other organisations doing good work in this space. For example: Wild Animal Initiative (an Animal Charity Evaluators Recommended Charity), the NYU Wild Animal Welfare Program, Animal Ethics, or Rethink Priorities’ Animal Welfare Department or Neglected Animals Project Fund.

1. ^{^}

   Mal Graham from Wild Animal Initiative describes these as “ecologically inert interventions” in their excellent discussion of intractability, uncertainty and wild animal welfare.