Wild Animal Initiative (WAI) is a nonprofit that works to understand and improve wild animal welfare.

History

WAI was founded in 2019 as a merger of two organizations, Wild-Animal Suffering Research and Utility Farm. Wild-Animal Suffering Research began in 2016 as a project of the Effective Altruism Foundation and was part of Sentience Politics for a year or so until becoming an independent organization (Eskander 2017). Utility Farm launched in 2017 (Rowe 2017).

Evaluation

Animal Charity Evaluators rates WAI a "top charity"—one of the four organizations awarded their highest rating. ACE considers WAI "an excellent giving opportunity because of their strong, cost-effective programs and their thorough strategy." (Animal Charity Evaluators 2020)

Wild-Animal Suffering Research and Utility Farm have both received funding from EA Funds (Bollard 2018; Cargill et al. 2018). In June 2021, WAI received a $3.5 million grant from Open Philanthropy to support projects relevant to the field of welfare biology (Bollard 2021).