The behavioural and physiological strategies an animal uses to manage challenging or aversive situations.

Coping is distinct from distress. An animal can be coping with a challenging situation and still maintain reasonable welfare, even though their physiology is activated. The welfare problem arises when the demands of a situation exceed the animal’s capacity to cope, at which point chronic stress begins to accumulate and welfare deteriorates.

Welfare assessment in research and clinical practice often focuses on whether an animal is coping with their circumstances rather than on whether they are stressed at all. The fundamental insight is that some level of stress is unavoidable, and the welfare-relevant question is whether the animal has the resources, the support, and the time to recover between challenges.

Coping strategies vary across species and within species. Some animals cope primarily through behavioural means: increased vigilance, avoidance, social withdrawal, or active management of the environment. Others cope primarily through physiological means: changes in heart rate variability, hormonal regulation, immune function. Most animals use a combination of behavioural and physiological strategies.

When coping strategies are unsuccessful, animals may develop more concerning patterns. Learned helplessness is one pattern, characterised by the animal abandoning attempts to cope and shifting into shutdown. Stereotypies are another, characterised by repetitive behaviours that may help the animal cope in environments where normal coping strategies are not available. Both patterns are markers of welfare concern.

Supporting coping in animals involves providing the conditions under which their natural coping strategies can work: appropriate space and time for recovery, social support from conspecifics, predictability and agency in their environment, and avoidance of challenges that exceed the animal’s capacity. These are the same conditions that modern welfare science consistently identifies as foundations of positive welfare.