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What counts as a de-extinction welfare assessment?
Start by defining the proposal and its intended conservation outcome. Specify the creation method—such as cloning, genome engineering, or selective breeding—along with the source animals, any egg or cell donors, the surrogate species, and the intended care or release plan.
IUCN uses the term proxy species because an organism created through these methods is not necessarily a faithful recreation of an extinct species. Genetic resemblance alone does not establish that an animal will have the extinct form’s behavior, needs, or ecological role. The project should therefore assess the animal that would actually be created, rather than assume it is equivalent to the extinct species.
Map every animal affected at each stage: source and donor animals, gestational surrogates, offspring, animals used for rearing or socialization, and animals that might encounter the proxies at a release site. IUCN SSC Guiding Principle 31 says: “All efforts should be made to minimise the suffering of individuals, of focal species, of gestational surrogates, and of other affected species, at every stage of the ‘de-extinction’ process.”
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How should welfare be assessed across the project lifecycle?
Creation and reproduction
Identify likely physical and psychological burdens associated with the proposed reproductive process for both the animals being created and the animals used to produce or carry them. Ask what health problems, stress, pain, failed pregnancies, or other welfare harms are plausible, and what evidence supports those expectations for this particular method and species.
The IUCN principles flag cloning and surrogate suffering as concerns, but do not provide a universal numerical rate for failure, suffering, or survival. Do not treat a rate from another species or method as a project-specific prediction without evidence that it applies.
Birth, rearing, and social development
Set out who will provide care after birth and whether the offspring can receive appropriate nutrition, veterinary attention, social contact, and species-relevant opportunities to develop. If other animals are used as parents, companions, or teachers, include their welfare and the effects of the arrangement in the assessment.
Consider whether the animals can learn or express behaviors important to their quality of life and, if release is contemplated, to survival. Possible concerns include foraging, predator avoidance, migration, and breeding. A plan should explain how relevant behaviors will be assessed rather than presuming that genetic engineering or captive birth will produce them.
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Evaluate whether the project can meet each animal’s physical and psychological needs over the full period it may remain in human care. The plan should specify suitable husbandry, social conditions, trained staff, veterinary capacity, and arrangements for long-term care. A project that cannot release its animals still needs a humane, funded management plan for them.
Use explicit welfare indicators, name who will monitor them, and define what observations trigger veterinary intervention or a change in management. Assess quality of life, not only survival or technical success.
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Release and post-release management
Treat release as a separate, high-consequence decision. Apply the IUCN SSC’s 2013 conservation-translocation framework alongside the proxy-specific principles, and assess the proposed site and receiving environment before animals are moved.
Consider habitat suitability, likely population performance and behavior, disease transmission, hybridization with related species, ecosystem effects, and consequences for people. Account for the possibility that animals lack critical behaviors or encounter pathogens, human conflict, or ecological conditions they have not experienced in captivity.
The IUCN proxy guidance identifies higher release risk where ecological conditions have changed, more time has passed since extinction, the proxy differs more genetically from the extinct form, or survival depends on learned critical behaviors. These are factors to examine, not a substitute for a site- and species-specific assessment.
How can project pathways and alternatives be compared?
Compare plausible pathways using the same criteria. Include the proposed creation method, keeping proxies in managed care, and alternatives that pursue the stated conservation objective without creating proxies. Depending on the objective, those alternatives may include maintaining the surrogate or source species and conventional conservation of extant species.
| Comparison criterion | Questions to answer for each pathway |
|---|---|
| Welfare effects | Which created animals, surrogates, source or donor animals, and other animals may be affected? What harms are plausible at each stage? |
| Care feasibility | Can the project meet physical and psychological needs, provide appropriate social conditions, and sustain qualified husbandry and veterinary care? |
| Release consequences | If release is proposed, what are the disease, ecological, behavioral, hybridization, and human-conflict risks at the specific site? |
| Uncertainty and reversibility | What remains uncertain, how can it be monitored, and can the decision be changed or reversed if harms emerge? |
| Conservation value | What conservation benefit is expected, how will it be assessed, and how does it compare with alternatives? |
Record evidence and uncertainty separately from projected benefits. A claimed conservation gain does not by itself resolve welfare costs; decision-makers need to compare both against realistic alternatives, as the IUCN proxy principles recommend.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What safeguards should be in place before breeding or release?
- Defined welfare measures: identify indicators for physical health, behavior, stress, and quality of life, with named monitoring responsibilities.
- Veterinary and husbandry capacity: establish who can provide appropriate care and what happens when an animal needs treatment or cannot thrive under the planned conditions.
- Decision thresholds: set in advance what findings require changes, pause, or termination. Do not wait for unacceptable harm to occur before deciding how to respond.
- Release contingencies: where release is proposed, plan individual health and welfare monitoring, veterinary intervention, staged evaluation where appropriate, and an exit strategy for unacceptable impacts.
- Humane fallback care: specify how every individual will be cared for if it cannot be released or if the project ends.
These safeguards make the plan testable: reviewers can see what will be monitored, who is accountable, and how the project will respond when outcomes differ from expectations.
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What can and cannot be concluded from the general guidance?
The IUCN SSC’s Guiding Principles on Creating Proxies of Extinct Species for Conservation Benefit (2016) address welfare through proxy creation and release planning. Its Guidelines for Reintroductions and Other Conservation Translocations, Version 1.0 (2013), provide a general framework for judging, planning, and monitoring translocations. A 2020 peer-reviewed discussion, “De-extinction” in conservation: Assessing risks of releasing “resurrected” species, examines release-risk assessment and the limits of quantifying indirect effects.
These publications offer frameworks, not a project-specific welfare conclusion, certification, or universal threshold. A defensible judgment depends on the named project, species, creation method, surrogate species, management plan, release location, and applicable jurisdiction. Legal requirements vary by jurisdiction; no single location or legal regime can be assumed here.
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