Obtaining funding for wild animal welfare science: A guide for researchers in other fields
We have an open call for proposals on all of our grant types. Learn more and apply by November 14.
October 22, 2025
Wild Animal Initiative’s grants fund research in wild animal welfare science — a field that is related to but distinct from other areas of wildlife science. The research projects we fund investigate the quality of life of individual, free-living wild animals, often focusing on common species that are not of conservation concern.
Because wild animal welfare science is an emerging field, many of our grants are awarded to researchers who are new to it, but who draw on expertise, methods, or datasets from related fields. Prior to receiving funding from WAI to work on wild animal welfare science, our current grantees conducted research in epidemiology, cognitive biology, veterinary science, and a range of other disciplines offering methods and concepts that can help us infer how wild animals are feeling and what factors are affecting their welfare.
If you have an academic interest in the welfare of individual wild animals but are unsure how your skill set or research focus might apply, we’ve compiled some guidance below.
Which research skills are useful in wild animal welfare science?
Many researchers in animal welfare science, animal behavior, ecophysiology, conservation biology, and similar fields already have the skills they need to conduct research in wild animal welfare science. Below are some common scientific research skills you may already have.
Systems dynamics: If you have skills in modeling systems and perturbations, you might consider applying for funding to collaborate with an ecologist to model a system relevant to wild animal welfare science.
Time budgets: We know surprisingly little about what animals’ lives are actually like in the wild, including how they spend their time. Gathering this information doesn’t necessarily require significant welfare experience — anyone (with patience!) can record detailed observations of how animals allocate their time. Working with a welfare scientist could help you decide how to categorize behavior into welfare-relevant groupings.
Accelerometry and biologging data analysis: Movement ecologists skilled in processing tri-axial accelerometer data could collaborate to develop behavioral budgets that indicate suffering (e.g., time spent in pain-related postures, reduced foraging efficiency).
Thermography and infrared imaging: Researchers using thermal imaging for population surveys or thermoregulation studies could adapt these methods to detect inflammation, injury, or fever as possible welfare indicators in field conditions.
Automated vocalization classification: Bioacousticians using machine learning for species identification could retrain models to detect distress calls, pain vocalizations, or changes in call structure indicating compromised welfare.
Large time-series dataset analysis: If you have experience collecting long-term data through direct observation, biologging, camera traps, or acoustic recorders, or if you have access to archived long-term behavioral, physiological, acoustic, or demographic datasets, you could work with a welfare scientist to reinterpret the data from a welfare perspective. For example, if you’ve already taken annual measurements of glucocorticoids in a population of wild animals to understand how environmental conditions impact fitness, you could separately test whether glucocorticoids are a welfare indicator for that species, and if so, re-analyze the long-term dataset in welfare terms.
Biochemical and (neuro)physiological marker measurement: If you already have samples from wild animals or are comfortable measuring these markers in the lab for veterinary or human medicine, you could collaborate with welfare scientists to analyze the samples to gather information about wild animal welfare.
Familiarity with animals’ responses to challenging environmental conditions: Knowledge of the responses that animals may adopt when coping with challenging conditions (e.g., phenotypic plasticity, dispersal), and of individualized niche conformation, construction, and choice is highly useful in wild animal welfare science.
Epidemiological analysis: Because many diseases are transmitted from wild animals to humans and animals managed by humans, epidemiologists often have data on wild animals at their disposal. Animals are often seen as reservoirs or transmitters in epidemiology, but this data can also be used to assess the welfare impacts of pathogens on wild animals themselves.
To explore projects we’ve funded that utilize these skills, visit our grantee database.
We encourage researchers with skills in areas relevant to wild animal welfare science to collaborate with researchers in other disciplines with complementary skills. We believe that interdisciplinary collaboration is required to make meaningful progress and fill knowledge gaps in the field of wild animal welfare science. For example, some of our grants have been awarded in part because the research team included one team member with a background in ecology and one with a background in animal welfare science. These include projects on arachnids and fish welfare.
If you are selected for a grant, you will also be invited to participate in networking and training events to share knowledge and skills.
“My background in ecology has been instrumental in conducting wild animal welfare research. Currently, I'm using wild white-footed deer mice and their helminth parasites as a model system to explore how sublethal infections shape the overall welfare of this widespread species. Drawing from my experiences across different areas of ecology challenges me to think outside the box and maintain curiosity about factors impacting organisms' welfare that we might not initially consider, helping me connect dots between ecological processes and individual welfare outcomes. Working in this field has also given me incredible new opportunities: It's been my first time working with small mammals, I've led a field team of about 15 people (developing my mentorship and project management skills), and I've been able to travel to other institutions to learn new procedures and establish collaborations that are enriching both my research and professional network.”
— Annie Cross, PhD student working on a WAI-funded project led by Amanda Koltz
Can I integrate welfare into an existing project?
Many research projects in related fields already generate data that can inform wild animal welfare science. We occasionally provide supplementary funding for studies that incorporate welfare-relevant indicators or analyses, where doing so can meaningfully advance understanding of wild animal welfare. Our Seed Grants are intended to help researchers develop new ideas or build wild animal welfare questions into existing projects.
One area in which we may be willing to provide supplemental funding is the incremental addition of welfare indicators to ecology projects. Many studies that set out to estimate ecological parameters like population size or diet collect blood, hair, or fecal samples along the way. These samples can be used to measure indicators that can offer partial insights into welfare, such as glucocorticoids and other hormones, and the gut microbiome. Studies like these may also use camera traps, which can be used to assess body condition and behavior — and these can offer additional partial insights into welfare.
Those partial insights may represent complementary pieces of the puzzle of what animals are feeling, so researchers can interpret and discuss them holistically to generate justified hypotheses about wild animal welfare that can then be tested with pre-validated welfare indicators.
Understanding and especially improving wild animal welfare will require a mechanistic understanding of ecology. Many studies that focus on modelling population size alone do not distinguish between mortality and dispersal from the study site, and do not count individuals who die very young (well before reproductive age). They are usually not critical to ecology and conservation, and it is often methodologically challenging to monitor juveniles and estimate true survival rates. But these things make all the difference in whether a piece of population ecology research can tell us something about wild animal welfare, so we may be able to support researchers in adding these components to their study.
Call for proposals
We currently have an open call for proposals on all of our grant types. If you’re seeking funding for a project that meets our selection criteria and you see your skill set reflected above, we invite you to apply. Expressions of interest are due by November 14, 2025. If you have questions about our grants or the application process, please contact us.
