The paper first establishes a baseline for the representation of veterinarians in wildlife research. Along with Michaël, 14 students from the UniLaSalle Veterinary College in France examined the educational backgrounds of the authors of more than 5,000 articles published in animal behavior, conservation, ecology, and physiology over the last 10 years. They found that the representation of veterinarians was modest in well-established wildlife research disciplines, with only 3% of articles having at least one author with veterinary training.
Following the same procedure, they also examined the representation of veterinarians in the emerging field of wild animal welfare science. They found that almost half of wild animal welfare articles in animal welfare journals included at least one veterinary author. This high representation may be a reflection of veterinary students’ early interests in animal welfare and wildlife, of the role of animal welfare in veterinary education, and of veterinarians’ belief that wild animal welfare research has practical applicability. (Note that these findings and interpretations should be read cautiously, though, since the number of wild animal welfare articles found was relatively low.)
Michael says he would have been delighted to come across a paper like this when he was a young veterinary student interested in both research and wild animals. Seeing how feasible it is for veterinarians to get involved in wildlife research would have given him confidence to take my career in an unconventional direction, which is a key part of field-building.
Despite some limitations, the article also suggests that veterinarians may be better prepared to conduct research in wild animal welfare than in any other wildlife research discipline. But if veterinarians are to come to view wild animal welfare research as a safe professional pathway, the emerging field of wild animal welfare science will need to offer them more career opportunities. And that will require growth in the field — in its community, in its activities, in its recognition, and in the resources at its disposal.
Building a scientific field for wild animal welfare science isn't just about publishing papers or funding research (though we did plenty of both last year). It's about the connections that form when scientists meet, collaborate, and champion a shared vision. In 2025, we watched those connections multiply in exciting ways.
Here's a glimpse of what supporters in the EA community helped make possible:
15 research grants awarded across 26 countries — including our first projects in Costa Rica, Italy, Serbia, and Tanzania
12 scientific conferences attended, sparking new collaborations and introducing more researchers to wild animal welfare science
Completion of fieldwork on our house sparrow project and first associated paper published
Events spotlighting wild animal welfare organized independently by our collaborators — a sign that the field is taking on a life of its own
Inside the report, you'll find data, narratives, and visualizations that provide further insight on our field-building strategy and success so far.
In Wild Animal Initiative's latest call for proposals, we solicited ideas for projects that explore how variation in environmental conditions interacts with wild animal welfare, how welfare variation correlates with mortality risk, and other priority research topics. We received 401 expressions of interest, one of the highest levels of interest we’ve seen in funding for wild animal welfare research since we began our Grants Program in 2021.
Following intensive internal review, we invited 53 applicants to submit full grant proposals. Our Science Team and external review panel are currently reviewing these to select the finalists. Projects are evaluated according to selection criteria that include cost-effectiveness, potential impact, and neglectedness of the topic. We’re excited to share details about the newly funded projects with you this summer!
This is interesting, Niki, thanks! I particularly appreciate and agree with what you wrote about whales typically being considered and managed from a conservation perspective, which can often be at odds with a suffering/welfare perspective.
If you haven't already seen it, you might like to read this blog post Wild Animal Initiative published last year: AI is learning to talk to wild animals. What could that mean for their welfare? Please note some of the terms in that blog post are less technical than they could be, because we were optimizing headlines etc. for broad SEO rather than technicality.
Wild Animal Initiative attended a wild animal welfare research symposium organized by our grantees at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) in the UK last month. The symposium included talks by WAI’s Science Team and grantees, interactive discussions, and networking opportunities. One of the researchers on our team also gave a lecture to 100 LJMU undergraduate students in animal behavior, wildlife management, and zoology.
This was the first time our grantees independently organized an event like this — a milestone that reflects the growth of the field. What began as funding for a single scientist’s research at LJMU is growing into a hub for researchers who are enthusiastic about wild animal welfare science and eager to adopt leading roles.
Hi Tristan, I'm on staff with Wild Animal Initiative and just wanted to say I really appreciate all of your thoughtfulness in considering where to give, as well as thank you for ultimately choosing WAI as one of the recipients. Totally agree that just "getting the ball rolling" is one of the biggest challenges right now, but we're really glad to see so much positive response from the scientific community so far.
It's not that the products currently available fall short in the sense that we believe they definitely don't work — they do hold a lot of promise. But the results of the pilot projects that have been done so far do not provide sufficient data for us to know exactly how to use them on a wide scale as a replacement for rodenticides, nor is there sufficient data yet about their effects on welfare. So there are still some knowledge gaps that require robust, third-party research to identify the most effective products; the most effective ways to apply them to large, wild populations; and how to measure their effects on welfare. It's possible that the Open Innovation competition will lead to some of those questions being answered for established products, or result in a new product for which some of those questions are answered in the early R&D stages.
Thanks so much, Ben! We are very excited about what you are doing with the Center for Wild Animal Welfare too. If anyone reading this comment has not heard of that new organization yet, check out their Marginal Funding Week post!
Research agendas: Essentially, no, we do not plan to manage research universities' agendas directly. We want the field to grow organically beyond our own work, which would mean universities and other groups can follow their intellectual curiosities and develop their own specializations. But since we are currently the only organization coordinating the growth of the field as a whole, our work immediately introduces new wild animal welfare scientists to the research areas that we see as priorities and emphasizes why those areas are important. We hope this sets the stage for the version of the field we envision to be the one that emerges.
Institutional barriers: Cross-departmental coordination is likely to be a major challenge. For example, researchers in a wild animal welfare research group may represent different departments, but sometimes research must be housed within one particular department, and that has implications for the facilities they have access to, which courses the students in their labs are required to take, etc.
Another challenge, and perhaps a larger one, is the difficulty of just getting a permanent academic position. So as we invest in a fellow in the context of their university, it's likely that they will not stay at that university forever but will move for a permanent position elsewhere. On the one hand, that could be great! Because then they might be able to bring wild animal welfare science to a university where it has not be present before. But this pattern means there is a limited window of opportunity for us to target specific institutions based on the people (fellows) we know there.
Institutions beyond academia: Influencing policy is an important part of our theory of change, but Wild Animal Initiative itself is unlikely to be directly involved — instead, it would be others advocating for the science our field produces to be used in policy decisions. Sometimes that could mean wild animal welfare scientists working within those kinds of organizations. We do not plan to host fellowships outside of traditional academia right now, but it's definitely possible that fellows we invest in at universities would move on to work at those kinds of institutions and advocate for wild animal welfare there.
I'll also mention that we have given research grants to some institutions similar to the ones you have mentioned. You can see a list of all the projects we've funded here: https://www.wildanimalinitiative.org/grantees
Unfortunately we don't have a filter for the type of institution, but if you're interested in this, I can help you find them.
Wild Animal Initiative’s latest research on the representation of veterinarians in wildlife research, with a special focus on wild animal welfare science, was published in Research in Veterinary Science. The lead author is WAI Research Manager Michaël Beaulieu.
The paper first establishes a baseline for the representation of veterinarians in wildlife research. Along with Michaël, 14 students from the UniLaSalle Veterinary College in France examined the educational backgrounds of the authors of more than 5,000 articles published in animal behavior, conservation, ecology, and physiology over the last 10 years. They found that the representation of veterinarians was modest in well-established wildlife research disciplines, with only 3% of articles having at least one author with veterinary training.
Following the same procedure, they also examined the representation of veterinarians in the emerging field of wild animal welfare science. They found that almost half of wild animal welfare articles in animal welfare journals included at least one veterinary author. This high representation may be a reflection of veterinary students’ early interests in animal welfare and wildlife, of the role of animal welfare in veterinary education, and of veterinarians’ belief that wild animal welfare research has practical applicability. (Note that these findings and interpretations should be read cautiously, though, since the number of wild animal welfare articles found was relatively low.)
Michael says he would have been delighted to come across a paper like this when he was a young veterinary student interested in both research and wild animals. Seeing how feasible it is for veterinarians to get involved in wildlife research would have given him confidence to take my career in an unconventional direction, which is a key part of field-building.
Despite some limitations, the article also suggests that veterinarians may be better prepared to conduct research in wild animal welfare than in any other wildlife research discipline. But if veterinarians are to come to view wild animal welfare research as a safe professional pathway, the emerging field of wild animal welfare science will need to offer them more career opportunities. And that will require growth in the field — in its community, in its activities, in its recognition, and in the resources at its disposal.
Wild Animal Initiative has published its 2025 annual report.
Building a scientific field for wild animal welfare science isn't just about publishing papers or funding research (though we did plenty of both last year). It's about the connections that form when scientists meet, collaborate, and champion a shared vision. In 2025, we watched those connections multiply in exciting ways.
Here's a glimpse of what supporters in the EA community helped make possible:
Inside the report, you'll find data, narratives, and visualizations that provide further insight on our field-building strategy and success so far.
In Wild Animal Initiative's latest call for proposals, we solicited ideas for projects that explore how variation in environmental conditions interacts with wild animal welfare, how welfare variation correlates with mortality risk, and other priority research topics. We received 401 expressions of interest, one of the highest levels of interest we’ve seen in funding for wild animal welfare research since we began our Grants Program in 2021.
Following intensive internal review, we invited 53 applicants to submit full grant proposals. Our Science Team and external review panel are currently reviewing these to select the finalists. Projects are evaluated according to selection criteria that include cost-effectiveness, potential impact, and neglectedness of the topic. We’re excited to share details about the newly funded projects with you this summer!
This is interesting, Niki, thanks! I particularly appreciate and agree with what you wrote about whales typically being considered and managed from a conservation perspective, which can often be at odds with a suffering/welfare perspective.
If you haven't already seen it, you might like to read this blog post Wild Animal Initiative published last year: AI is learning to talk to wild animals. What could that mean for their welfare? Please note some of the terms in that blog post are less technical than they could be, because we were optimizing headlines etc. for broad SEO rather than technicality.
Wild Animal Initiative attended a wild animal welfare research symposium organized by our grantees at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) in the UK last month. The symposium included talks by WAI’s Science Team and grantees, interactive discussions, and networking opportunities. One of the researchers on our team also gave a lecture to 100 LJMU undergraduate students in animal behavior, wildlife management, and zoology.
This was the first time our grantees independently organized an event like this — a milestone that reflects the growth of the field. What began as funding for a single scientist’s research at LJMU is growing into a hub for researchers who are enthusiastic about wild animal welfare science and eager to adopt leading roles.
Hi Tristan, I'm on staff with Wild Animal Initiative and just wanted to say I really appreciate all of your thoughtfulness in considering where to give, as well as thank you for ultimately choosing WAI as one of the recipients. Totally agree that just "getting the ball rolling" is one of the biggest challenges right now, but we're really glad to see so much positive response from the scientific community so far.
It's not that the products currently available fall short in the sense that we believe they definitely don't work — they do hold a lot of promise. But the results of the pilot projects that have been done so far do not provide sufficient data for us to know exactly how to use them on a wide scale as a replacement for rodenticides, nor is there sufficient data yet about their effects on welfare. So there are still some knowledge gaps that require robust, third-party research to identify the most effective products; the most effective ways to apply them to large, wild populations; and how to measure their effects on welfare. It's possible that the Open Innovation competition will lead to some of those questions being answered for established products, or result in a new product for which some of those questions are answered in the early R&D stages.
Yes it is; good eye! And thank you; that was me. Photographed about a year ago in northern Georgia. 🙂
Thanks so much, Ben! We are very excited about what you are doing with the Center for Wild Animal Welfare too. If anyone reading this comment has not heard of that new organization yet, check out their Marginal Funding Week post!
Hi Becca, thanks for your questions.
Research agendas: Essentially, no, we do not plan to manage research universities' agendas directly. We want the field to grow organically beyond our own work, which would mean universities and other groups can follow their intellectual curiosities and develop their own specializations. But since we are currently the only organization coordinating the growth of the field as a whole, our work immediately introduces new wild animal welfare scientists to the research areas that we see as priorities and emphasizes why those areas are important. We hope this sets the stage for the version of the field we envision to be the one that emerges.
Institutional barriers: Cross-departmental coordination is likely to be a major challenge. For example, researchers in a wild animal welfare research group may represent different departments, but sometimes research must be housed within one particular department, and that has implications for the facilities they have access to, which courses the students in their labs are required to take, etc.
Another challenge, and perhaps a larger one, is the difficulty of just getting a permanent academic position. So as we invest in a fellow in the context of their university, it's likely that they will not stay at that university forever but will move for a permanent position elsewhere. On the one hand, that could be great! Because then they might be able to bring wild animal welfare science to a university where it has not be present before. But this pattern means there is a limited window of opportunity for us to target specific institutions based on the people (fellows) we know there.
Institutions beyond academia: Influencing policy is an important part of our theory of change, but Wild Animal Initiative itself is unlikely to be directly involved — instead, it would be others advocating for the science our field produces to be used in policy decisions. Sometimes that could mean wild animal welfare scientists working within those kinds of organizations. We do not plan to host fellowships outside of traditional academia right now, but it's definitely possible that fellows we invest in at universities would move on to work at those kinds of institutions and advocate for wild animal welfare there.
I'll also mention that we have given research grants to some institutions similar to the ones you have mentioned. You can see a list of all the projects we've funded here:
https://www.wildanimalinitiative.org/grantees
Unfortunately we don't have a filter for the type of institution, but if you're interested in this, I can help you find them.