When human activities have the potential to negatively impact the welfare of wild animals, there is a duty to ensure that these actions are conducted in a manner that minimises the injury, pain, or distress to animals. Natural resource extraction (e.g., logging and onshore or offshore mining) or planning and construction of new developments (e.g., housing and infrastructure) should incorporate animal welfare impact assessment tools to minimise welfare harms to wild animals.

SPCA is concerned with the welfare of all wild animals and opposes human-made changes to the environment that may cause severe and avoidable negative impacts to wild animals through direct interference or the destruction of their habitats.

Wild animals face a range of human-driven threats that lead to heavily degraded environments where meeting basic biological needs becomes more difficult. Cumulative pressures from human activities increase the vulnerability of wild animal populations to further threats of habitat loss, depleting prey, noise and water pollution, and the overarching longer-term threats of climate change. Climate change, including global warming, rising air and water temperatures, heat waves, water acidification, and extreme weather events all negatively impact the welfare of many animals.