Evaluating the Welfare Implications of Climate Change for Cetaceans

Consideration of the implications of climate change for wild animal welfare is still relatively novel. The cetaceans are a very diverse group of mammals occupying a range of habitats across the world’s oceans. Whilst this makes generalisations difficult, there is a growing body of scientific literature which anticipates and reports impacts. These include prey loss and associated prey stress, changes in cetacean foraging locations and other distribution shifts (including movement into higher latitudes), the use of extra energy to try to maintain body temperature and the loss of habitat for ice-dependent species. Climate change-driven changes in human behaviour, such as the introduction of new activities into increasingly ice-free polar waters, also offer challenges to marine mammals. All these impacts are predominantly considered in the literature from a conservation perspective. However, habitat destruction, pollution and the spread of disease and noise have already been cast as causes for animal welfare concern, and it is argued that climate change will further exacerbate these and other issues in many instances. Assessing the full welfare implications of climate change calls for innovative and careful application of welfare science and will be challenging, but a promising start has been made.