Animal welfare science and ecology are both generally concerned with the lives of animals, however they differ in their objectives and scope; the former studies the welfare of animals considered ‘domestic’ and under the domain of humans, while the latter studies wild animals with respect to ecological processes. Each of these approaches addresses certain aspects of the lives of animals living in the world though neither, we argue, tells us important information about the welfare of wild animals. This paper argues for the development of a new scientific discipline ‘welfare biology’ to address these issues and more, given the deficiencies of pre-existing life science disciplines to research the subject. Welfare biology is the study of the welfare of all living beings who have a welfare, with a value orientation toward promoting that welfare, regardless of the beings’ situation or relationship to humans and our activities.

动物福利科学和生态学通常都与动物的生命有关，但是它们的目标和范围有所不同。前者研究被认为是“家养”动物并属于人类的动物的福利，而后者则研究有关生态过程的野生动物。尽管我们都认为，这两种方法都不能解决有关野生动物福利的重要信息，但它们都解决了世界上动物生活的某些方面。鉴于先前存在的生命科学学科研究该学科的不足，本文主张开发一种新的科学学科“福利生物学”以解决这些问题以及更多问题。福利生物学是对具有福利的所有生物的福利进行的研究，其价值取向是促进该福利，