Wild animal translocations: animal welfare risk assessment guidance

6. The nine welfare risk assessment questions

While these questions tend to concentrate on the avoidance of harms, contemporary animal welfare evaluation also encompasses aspects of positive welfare, which also deserve attention. Indeed, from an ethical standpoint, the desired outcome of any wild animal translocation is that the welfare of individual wild animals involved shows a net benefit and any significant disbenefit is mitigated. If not, the assessment should clearly indicate who or what is the beneficiary of the wild animal translocation, with appropriate ethical justification. Positive individual animal-level effects are more likely where species conservation is undertaken to remove animals from degraded habitats or from where there is continuing habitat loss, when remaining in situ would compromise the survival or welfare of individuals.

i. Has the habitat been assessed (and adapted if necessary) prior to translocating animals?

It is assumed that practitioners undertaking wild animal translocations will assess suitability of the new habitat, food, shelter, food and range competition, predators, health risk, but welfare should be a factor here along with likely survival rates. Will animals need any pre-release enclosures, remote monitoring and feeding (a form of so-called ‘soft release’) at the site? The SCCT/Best practice guidelines and the IUCN guidelines advise on many aspects to ensure that the release site should basically meet all the needs of the species and its life stages, as well as being sufficiently far enough away from sub-optimal habitats to avoid the released population becoming entrapped in those areas as they disperse or grow. A recent report notes that animal personality and behavioural plasticity of animals selected for reintroduction may influence success (Wilson et al., 2022) and so should be taken into account. The wild animal welfare risk assessment should aim to quantify all relevant factors and decide what level of risk due to these environmental factors is acceptable, when set against the overall benefit of the project.

ii. What will be done to protect the welfare of resident species?

There will need to be a welfare-based assessment of any impacts on resident species, including residents of the same species and other species.

Welfare impacts on resident conspecifics could include competition for space, shelter, food and other resources. Conspecifics could also be exposed to novel diseases or introduced animals could exacerbate/trigger higher prevalence and spread of existing diseases. Translocated animals could disrupt existing social groups and territories/home ranges or cause injuries to, and death or infanticide of juveniles. Will the translocation of new individuals lead to the overall animal population exceeding the ecological carrying capacity of the site/habitat? If so, how will the population be controlled/stabilised? Can the population disperse to new areas?

Welfare impacts on other resident species may be similar to those on resident conspecifics, if these species are closely related ecologically and/or phylogenetically. Welfare impacts on other resident species could include over-predation, disruption of land use or modification of habitats, thereby denying access to food and other resources, and leading to hunger, social stresses and poor health. Other resident species could also experience injuries caused by predation attempts and/or interspecific aggression/fighting, causing fear and pain, and exposure to disease.

Addressing this question will need case-specific information to allow proposers to consider whether any likely unacceptable welfare harm to resident animals may occur and, if so, whether this can be mitigated by reasonable means. For example, predation is a normal behavioural and ecological interaction in an ecosystem, but where this causes unforeseen harmful welfare, e.g., resulting in injuries by being driven into fences or other structures during pursuit, then mitigation would be required. If not (or if only partially), then the overall merits of the planned translocation will need to take account of this inter-species ethical dilemma: conservation is an inherently ethical field (Ferraro et al., 2021).

iii. What will be done to protect the welfare of animals at the point of capture, during transport, during any holding phase until release?

All transported vertebrate animals, whether wild or domestic, are subject to pre-existing welfare legislation (in Scotland currently the Welfare of Animals (Transport) (Scotland) Regulations 2006) and all wild vertebrate animals held in captivity are subject to the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006. As such, considerable legal protection already exists for wild translocated vertebrate animals during the process of being held and transported. However, this protection is not tailored precisely to the needs of wild animals and the 2006 Act provides potential dispensations for certain conduct and circumstances that may occur during translocations. These include conduct that is licensed or otherwise authorised, undertaken for the purpose of benefiting the animal or considered, in the circumstances, to be that of a reasonably competent and humane person. If these exemptions are seen to apply, suffering that occurs may not be considered “unnecessary” and thus not an offence. The 2006 Act also requires responsible persons to take reasonable steps to ensure that the needs of animals are met to the extent required by good practice. However, here too the Act potentially exempts failure to meet an animal’s needs when the activity or the keeping is for a lawful purpose. Thus, while it may be particularly difficult to provide for the needs of wild animals being quarantined or transported, the general animal welfare legislation may not always address failures in that regard.

It should be noted that the needs of non-domesticated animals, whether they have been born in captivity and maintained in a manner to ensure they are not habituated to the presence of people, or born in the wild, are often not well known and so there will be much uncertainty about meeting their requirements compared to those of domestic animals. This is true even if the period of captivity/transport is brief, although often keeping this time as short as possible can significantly minimise any adverse welfare effects. Current guidelines emphasise the importance of post-release success by minimising stress during capture, handling, transport and pre-release management (National Species Reintroduction Forum, 2014; IUCN/SSC, 2013).

Therefore, it is important that persons responsible for animals being translocated take care to undertake relevant welfare assessments, as described in paragraphs 5 and 6 below, rather than relying solely on compliance with the law.

iv. What will be done if welfare is compromised post release?

Releasing into the wild an animal that is not fit to fend for itself would almost certainly constitute a breach of the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006, which specifically prohibits the abandonment of an animal in circumstances likely to cause it suffering. Therefore, extreme caution should be taken to ensure any animal that is intended for release has been assessed by suitably competent persons as to its fitness to be released (this may include training to hunt or forage effectively in the new environment) and its likely ability to cope with the environment selected for its release. Knowingly releasing an animal into an environment that has an inadequate food source or significant hazards may also be in breach of the Act. SCCT/Best practice guidelines and IUCN guidelines reinforce these ideas with advice that only a suitable area of release should be selected and the life stage of the species, time of year, etc., should be carefully considered and justified to ensure released animals have the best chances of survival and good welfare. The importance of the species’ social structure and individuals’ interdependence must be considered; in many cases social groups, rather than individuals will need to be translocated. Guidance tends to favour “soft” release in animals planned for translocations, whereby the animal(s) are first (briefly) habituated to their new environment with the provision of food and shelter, to provide the best chance of monitoring welfare and ensuring subsequent successful release. In the case of animals rehabilitated after short-term captivity, success is better if the captive period is as short as possible. The translocations code and guidance for England (DEFRA, 2021) does refer to behavioural monitoring to give early warning of animal welfare problems after release. Plans need to include welfare-friendly exit strategies that may include attempts to re-capture individual animals showing signs of poor welfare, in order that they can be clinically assessed to determine, where possible, the reason for their failure to cope. Protocols should be in place to relieve the suffering of any captured individual unable to return to the wild. Experience from translocations of certain iconic species suggests that steps may need to be taken to, as far as possible, protect animals from human persecution. The degree of monitoring will be dictated by individual circumstances but is likely to be most intensive in the immediate post-release phase.

v. How will welfare be assessed / monitored?

One of the main purposes of this risk assessment is to provide guidance on welfare evaluation and monitoring. There are no widely accepted methods available specifically for this purpose. Some examples exist (e.g., Harvey et al., 2020; 2023). These require the collection of information about a range of measurable indicators, such as physical state and behaviour. These can be used to infer the mental state of the animal(s) concerned through, for example, using the Five Domains Model (e.g., Mellor & Beausoleil, 2015), whereby assessment in four physical/functional domains is used to infer the affective experiences of the animal(s) (i.e., mental state) and come to a representation of their overall welfare status (see the Five Domains Model below). The anticipated welfare impact of the proposed translocation needs to be assessed as part of the licensing process before any animal movements occur and be repeated at suitable intervals to both confirm the predicted welfare status and monitor change over time. It is helpful to identify at the start of the process of a translocation programme what success actually looks like and where the demarcation lines should be drawn that would trigger a halt to the process and a re-evaluation of the methodology.

vi. Who will do this in practice?

The above process requires considerable effort to both collect relevant information prior to the translocation process and at appropriate intervals after release. This may also need to include information about other species at the release site, if they may be impacted. The initial data collection and evaluations may be undertaken by the project team, who may already have an ethical review panel; determining animal welfare status would ideally involve an external person/body trained in welfare assessments and be peer reviewed. In the Scottish context, NatureScot would be the appropriate government body to advise on this and encourage the practitioner to incorporate this consideration into project design. NatureScot would ultimately look at the licence application to see whether welfare had been adequately addressed and keep this under review through progress reports to oversee this.

vii. What is the scope for welfare considerations to impact on the delivery or termination of the programme?

Licensing authorities will need to consider more explicitly the need for a specific animal welfare assessment to be part of an application process and have agreed procedures in advance for deciding, for example, that a licence may not be granted on animal welfare grounds. Welfare considerations also need to include an exit strategy, if the welfare state of the released animals (or other indirect impacts) declines beyond an agreed point (and accepting there can be much individual variation when coming to this conclusion). It is recognised that in some cases, practical removal of released animals may be impossible (animals may be trap shy) or itself cause excessive harm, especially if they are species with more cryptic behaviour. If an animal is captured but cannot be returned to either its original or its new location, euthanasia may be preferable in welfare terms to long-term captivity, and the ethical implications of these decisions should be considered in advance.

viii. What is the best way to share the assessment to allow greater transparency and encourage those involved with other wild animal translocation programmes?

By sharing information about how animal welfare has been evaluated as an explicit part of determining the acceptability or otherwise of a wild animal translocation, a best-practice approach across a range of translocation activities can be fostered. Ideally this process should be peer reviewed to ensure a robust, evidence-based approach. Historically, and for understandable reasons, practitioners may have been wary about publishing important information on welfare issues when there have been concerns. SAWC will work to develop a way that useful but sensitive information can be shared to inform future activities.

ix. Can the welfare risk assessment be used as part of any public engagement activity?

Being positive and proactive about the welfare assessment will enhance the public attitude towards the proposed wild animal translocation and address societal ethical expectations. Landowners are also key to any translocation process and ensuring they have evidence-based information regarding the welfare of the animals involved can only help guide continuing and future projects.