![Hawk eating prey](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Hawk_eating_prey.jpg)
Wild animal suffering is the
suffering
Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, may be an experience of unpleasantness or aversion, possibly associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an individual. Suffering is the basic element that makes up the negative valence of a ...
experienced by nonhuman animals living outside of direct human control, due to harms such as
disease
A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...
,
injury
An injury is any physiological damage to living tissue caused by immediate physical stress. An injury can occur intentionally or unintentionally and may be caused by blunt trauma, penetrating trauma, burning, toxic exposure, asphyxiation, o ...
,
parasitism
Parasitism is a Symbiosis, close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the Host (biology), host, causing it some harm, and is Adaptation, adapted structurally to this way of lif ...
,
starvation
Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy intake, below the level needed to maintain an organism's life. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, dea ...
and
malnutrition
Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is "a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients" which adversely affects the body's tissues a ...
,
dehydration
In physiology, dehydration is a lack of total body water, with an accompanying disruption of metabolic processes. It occurs when free water loss exceeds free water intake, usually due to exercise, disease, or high environmental temperature. Mil ...
,
weather conditions
Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the ...
,
natural disaster
A natural disaster is "the negative impact following an actual occurrence of natural hazard in the event that it significantly harms a community". A natural disaster can cause loss of life or damage property, and typically leaves some econ ...
s, and
killings by other animals,
as well as
psychological stress
In psychology, stress is a feeling of emotional strain and pressure. Stress is a type of psychological pain. Small amounts of stress may be beneficial, as it can improve athletic performance, motivation and reaction to the environment. Exces ...
.
Some estimates indicate that these individual animals make up the vast majority of animals in existence.
An extensive amount of natural suffering has been described as an unavoidable consequence of
Darwinian evolution
Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that ...
and the pervasiveness of
reproductive strategies which favor producing large numbers of offspring, with a low amount of parental care and of which only a small number survive to adulthood, the rest dying in painful ways, has led some to argue that suffering dominates happiness in nature.
The topic has historically been discussed in the context of the
philosophy of religion
Philosophy of religion is "the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions". Philosophical discussions on such topics date from ancient times, and appear in the earliest known texts concerning ph ...
as an instance of the
problem of evil
The problem of evil is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God.The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,The Problem of Evil, Michael TooleyThe Internet Encyclope ...
. More recently, starting in the 19th century, a number of writers have considered the subject from a secular standpoint as a general moral issue, that humans might be able to take actions toward preventing. There is considerable disagreement around taking such actions, as many believe that human interventions in nature, for this reason, should not take place because of practicality,
valuing ecological preservation over the well-being and interests of individual animals, considering any obligation to reduce wild animal suffering implied by animal rights to be absurd,
or viewing nature as an idyllic place where happiness is widespread.
Some have argued that such interventions would be an example of human
hubris
Hubris (; ), or less frequently hybris (), describes a personality quality of extreme or excessive pride or dangerous overconfidence, often in combination with (or synonymous with) arrogance. The term ''arrogance'' comes from the Latin ', mean ...
, or
playing God and use examples of how human interventions, for other reasons, have unintentionally caused harm.
Others, including
animal rights
Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the sa ...
writers, have defended variants of a ''laissez-faire'' position, which argues that humans should not harm wild animals, but that humans should not intervene to reduce natural harms that they experience.
Advocates of such interventions argue that animal rights and welfare positions imply an obligation to help animals suffering in the wild due to natural processes. Some have asserted that refusing to help animals in situations where humans would consider it wrong not to help humans is an example of
speciesism
Speciesism () is a term used in philosophy regarding the treatment of individuals of different species. The term has several different definitions within the relevant literature. A common element of most definitions is that speciesism involves t ...
.
Others argue that humans intervene in nature constantly—sometimes in very substantial ways—for their own interests and to further environmentalist goals.
Human responsibility for enhancing existing natural harms has also been cited as a reason for intervention.
Some advocates argue that humans already successfully help animals in the wild, such as vaccinating and healing injured and sick animals, rescuing animals in fires and other natural disasters, feeding hungry animals, providing thirsty animals with water, and caring for orphaned animals. They also assert that although wide-scale interventions may not be possible with our current level of understanding, they could become feasible in the future with improved knowledge and technologies.
For these reasons, they claim it is important to raise awareness about the issue of wild animal suffering, spread the idea that humans should help animals suffering in these situations and encourage research into effective measures which can be taken in the future to reduce the suffering of these individuals, without causing greater harms.
Extent of suffering in nature
Sources of harm
Disease
Animals in the wild may suffer from diseases which circulate similarly to human colds and flus, as well as
epizootic
In epizoology, an epizootic (from Greek: ''epi-'' upon + ''zoon'' animal) is a disease event in a nonhuman animal population analogous to an epidemic in humans. An epizootic may be restricted to a specific locale (an "outbreak"), general (an "epi ...
s, which are analogous to human
epidemic
An epidemic (from Ancient Greek, Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of patients among a given population within an area in a short period of time.
Epidemics ...
s; epizootics are relatively understudied in the scientific literature.
Some well-studied examples include
chronic wasting disease
Chronic wasting disease (CWD), sometimes called zombie deer disease, is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) affecting deer. TSEs are a family of diseases thought to be caused by misfolded proteins called prions and include similar dis ...
in elk and deer,
white-nose syndrome
White-nose syndrome (WNS) is a fungal disease in North American bats which has resulted in the dramatic decrease of the bat population in the United States and Canada, reportedly killing millions as of 2018. The condition is named for a distincti ...
in bats,
devil facial tumour disease
Devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) is an aggressive non-viral clonally transmissible cancer which affects Tasmanian devils, a marsupial native to Australia. DFTD was first described in 1996. In the subsequent decade the disease ravaged Tasmania's ...
in Tasmanian devils and
Newcastle disease
Virulent Newcastle disease (VND), formerly exotic Newcastle disease, is a contagious viral avian disease affecting many domestic and wild bird species; it is transmissible to humans. Though it can infect humans, most cases are non-symptomatic; ...
in birds.
Examples of other diseases include
myxomatosis
Myxomatosis is a disease caused by ''Myxoma virus'', a poxvirus in the genus ''Leporipoxvirus''. The natural hosts are tapeti (''Sylvilagus brasiliensis'') in South and Central America, and brush rabbits (''Sylvilagus bachmani'') in North Ame ...
and
viral haemorrhagic disease in rabbits,
ringworm
Dermatophytosis, also known as ringworm, is a fungal infection of the skin. Typically it results in a red, itchy, scaly, circular rash. Hair loss may occur in the area affected. Symptoms begin four to fourteen days after exposure. Multiple a ...
and
cutaneous fibroma in deer, and
chytridiomycosis
Chytridiomycosis ( ) is an infectious disease in amphibians, caused by the chytrid fungi '' Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis'' and '' Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans''. Chytridiomycosis has been linked to dramatic population declines or extinc ...
in amphibians. Diseases, combined with parasitism, "may induce listlessness, shivering, ulcers, pneumonia, starvation, violent behavior, or other gruesome symptoms over the course of days or weeks leading up to death."
Poor health may dispose wild animals to increased risk of infection, which in turn reduces the health of the animal, further increasing the risk of infection. The
terminal investment hypothesis holds that infection can lead some animals to focus their limited remaining resources on increasing the number of offspring they produce.
Injury
Wild animals can experience injury from a variety of causes such as predation;
intraspecific competition
Intraspecific competition is an interaction in population ecology, whereby members of the same species compete for limited resources. This leads to a reduction in fitness for both individuals, but the more fit individual survives and is able to r ...
; accidents, which can cause fractures, crushing injuries, eye injuries and wing tears; self-amputation;
molting
In biology, moulting (British English), or molting (American English), also known as sloughing, shedding, or in many invertebrates, ecdysis, is the manner in which an animal routinely casts off a part of its body (often, but not always, an outer ...
, a common source of injury for arthropods; extreme weather conditions, such as storms,
extreme heat
A heat wave, or heatwave, is a period of excessively hot weather, which may be accompanied by high humidity, especially in oceanic climate countries. While definitions vary, a heat wave is usually measured relative to the usual climate in the ...
or cold weather; and natural disasters. Such injuries may be extremely painful, which can lead to behaviors which further negatively affect the well-being of the injured animal. Injuries can also make animals susceptible to diseases and other injuries, as well as parasitic infections. Additionally, the affected animal may find it harder to eat and drink and struggle to escape from predators and attacks from other members of their species.
Parasitism
![Betty_in_mouth](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Betty_in_mouth.jpg)
Many wild animals, particularly larger ones, have been found to be infected with at least one parasite. Parasites can negatively affect the well-being of their
hosts
A host is a person responsible for guests at an event or for providing hospitality during it.
Host may also refer to:
Places
*Host, Pennsylvania, a village in Berks County
People
*Jim Host (born 1937), American businessman
*Michel Host ( ...
by redirecting their host's resources to themselves, destroying their host's tissue and increasing their host's susceptibility to predation.
As a result, parasites may reduce the movement, reproduction and survival of their hosts. Parasites can alter the
phenotype
In genetics, the phenotype () is the set of observable characteristics or traits of an organism. The term covers the organism's morphology or physical form and structure, its developmental processes, its biochemical and physiological proper ...
of their hosts; limb malformations in amphibians caused by ''
Ribeiroia ondatrae
''Ribeiroia ondatrae'', or the frog-mutating flatworm is a parasite in the genus ''Ribeiroia'' which is believed to be responsible for many of the recent increases in amphibian limb malformations, particularly missing, malformed, and additiona ...
,'' is one example. Some parasites have the capacity to manipulate the cognitive function of their hosts, such as worms which make crickets kill themselves by directing them to drown themselves in water for the purpose of reproduction in an aquatic environment, as well as caterpillars using dopamine containing secretions that manipulate ants to act as bodyguards for protecting the caterpillar from parasites. It is rare that parasites directly cause the death of their host, rather, they may increase the chances of their host's death by other means;
one meta-study found that mortality was 2.65 times higher in animals affected by parasites, than those that weren't.
Unlike parasites,
parasitoid
In evolutionary ecology, a parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its host (biology), host at the host's expense, eventually resulting in the death of the host. Parasitoidism is one of six major evolutionarily stable str ...
s—which include species of worms, wasps, beetles and flies—kill their hosts, who are generally other invertebrates.
Parasitoids specialize in attacking one particular species. Different methods are used by parasitoids to infect their hosts: laying their eggs on plants which are frequently visited by their host, laying their eggs on or close to the host's eggs or young and stinging adult hosts so that they are paralyzed, then laying their eggs near or on them.
The larvae of parasitoids grow by feeding on the internal organs and bodily fluids of their hosts, which eventually leads to the death of their host when their organs have ceased to function, or they have lost all of their bodily fluids.
Superparasitism is a phenomenon where multiple different parasitoid species simultaneously infect the same host.
Parasitoid wasp
Parasitoid wasps are a large group of hymenopteran superfamilies, with all but the wood wasps (Orussoidea) being in the wasp-waisted Apocrita. As parasitoids, they lay their eggs on or in the bodies of other arthropods, sooner or later causin ...
s have been described as having the largest number of species of any other animal species.
Starvation and malnutrition
Starvation and malnutrition particularly affect young, old, sick and weak animals, and can be caused by injury, disease, poor teeth and environmental conditions, with winter being particularly associated with an increased risk. It is argued that because food availability limits the size of wild animal populations, that this means that a huge number of individuals die as a result of starvation; such deaths are described as prolonged and marked by extreme distress as the animal's bodily functions shut down. Within days of hatching,
fish larvae
Ichthyoplankton (from Greek: ἰχθύς, , "fish"; and πλαγκτός, , "drifter") are the eggs and larvae of fish. They are mostly found in the sunlit zone of the water column, less than 200 metres deep, which is sometimes called the epi ...
may experience
hydrodynamic
In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids—liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including ''aerodynamics'' (the study of air and other gases in motion) and ...
starvation, whereby the motion of fluids in their environment limits their ability to feed; this can lead to mortality of greater than 99%.
Dehydration
Dehydration is associated with high mortality in wild animals. Drought can cause many animals in larger populations to die of thirst. Thirst can also expose animals to an increased risk of being preyed upon; they may remain hidden in safe spaces to avoid this. However, their need for water may eventually force them to leave these spaces; being in a weakened state, this makes them easier targets for predatory animals. Animals who remain hidden cannot move due to dehydration and may end up dying of thirst. When dehydration is combined with starvation, the process of dehydration can be accelerated. Diseases, such as chytridiomycosis, can also increase the risk of dehydration.
Weather conditions
![Mountain Cottontail on Seedskadee NWR (23510559313)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Mountain_Cottontail_on_Seedskadee_NWR_%2823510559313%29.jpg)
Weather has a strong influence on the health and survival of wild animals. Weather phenomena such as heavy snow, flooding and droughts can directly harm animals.
and indirectly harm them by increasing the risks of other forms of suffering, such as starvation and disease.
Extreme weather
Extreme weather or extreme climate events includes unexpected, unusual, severe, or unseasonal weather; weather at the extremes of the historical distribution—the range that has been seen in the past. Often, extreme events are based on a locat ...
can cause the deaths of animals by destroying their habitats and directly killing animals;
hailstorms
Hail is a form of solid precipitation. It is distinct from ice pellets (American English "sleet"), though the two are often confused. It consists of balls or irregular lumps of ice, each of which is called a hailstone. Ice pellets generally fal ...
are known to kill thousands of birds. Certain weather conditions may maintain large numbers of individuals over many generations; such conditions, while conducive to survival, may still cause suffering for animals. Humidity or lack thereof can be beneficial or harmful depending on an individual animals' needs.
Deaths of large numbers of animals—particularly cold-blooded ones such as amphibians, reptiles, fishes and invertebrates—can take place as a result of temperature fluctuations, with young animals being particularly susceptible. Temperature may not be a problem for parts of the year, but can be a problem in especially hot summers or cold winters.
Extreme heat and lack of rainfall are also associated with suffering and increased mortality by increasing susceptibility to disease and causing vegetation that insects and other animals rely upon to dry out; this drying out can also make animals who rely on plants as hiding places more susceptible to predation. Amphibians who rely on moisture to breathe and stay cool may die when water sources dry up. Hot temperatures can cause fish to die by making it hard for them to breathe.
Climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
and associated warming and drying is making certain habitats intolerable for some animals through
heat stress
Hyperthermia, also known simply as overheating, is a condition in which an individual's body temperature is elevated beyond normal due to failed thermoregulation. The person's body produces or absorbs more heat than it dissipates. When extreme ...
and reducing available water sources.
Mass mortality is particularly linked with winter weather due to low temperatures, lack of food and bodies of water where animals live, such as frogs, freezing over; a study on cottontail rabbits indicates that only 32% of them survive the winter.
Fluctuating environmental conditions in the winter months is also associated with increased mortality.
Natural disasters
Fires, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, storms, floods and other natural disasters are sources of extensive short- and long-term harm for wild animals, causing death, injury, illness and malnutrition, as well as poisoning by contaminating food and water sources.
Such disasters can also alter the physical environment of individual animals in ways which are harmful to them; fires and large volcanic eruptions can affect the weather and marine animals may die due to disasters affecting water temperature and salinity.
Killing by other animals
![Kannibalismus bei Zauneidechsen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Kannibalismus_bei_Zauneidechsen.jpg)
Predation has been described as the act of one animal capturing and killing another animal to consume part or all of their body.
Jeff McMahan, a moral philosopher, asserts that: "Wherever there is animal life, predators are stalking, chasing, capturing, killing, and devouring their prey. Agonized suffering and violent death are ubiquitous and continuous."
Preyed upon animals die in a variety of different ways, with the time taking for them to die, which can be lengthy, depending on the method that the predatory animal uses to kill them; some animals are swallowed and digested while still being alive. Other preyed upon animals are paralysed with venom before being eaten; venom can also be used to start digesting the animal.
Animals may be killed by members of their own species due to
territorial
A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal.
In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...
disputes,
competition
Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...
for mates and social status, as well as
cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, b ...
,
infanticide
Infanticide (or infant homicide) is the intentional killing of infants or offspring. Infanticide was a widespread practice throughout human history that was mainly used to dispose of unwanted children, its main purpose is the prevention of reso ...
and
siblicide
Siblicide (attributed by behavioural ecologist Doug Mock to Barbara M. Braun) is the killing of an infant individual by its close relatives (full or half siblings). It may occur directly between siblings or be mediated by the parents, and is dri ...
.
Psychological stress
It has been argued that animals in the wild do not appear to be happier than domestic animals, based on findings that these individuals have greater levels of
cortisol
Cortisol is a steroid hormone, in the glucocorticoid class of hormones. When used as a medication, it is known as hydrocortisone.
It is produced in many animals, mainly by the ''zona fasciculata'' of the adrenal cortex in the adrenal gland ...
and elevated
stress response
The fight-or-flight or the fight-flight-or-freeze response (also called hyperarousal or the acute stress response) is a physiological reaction that occurs in response to a perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival. It was first des ...
s relative to domestic animals; additionally, unlike domestic animals, wild animals do not have their needs provided for them by human caretakers.
Sources of stress for these individuals include illness and infection, predation avoidance, nutritional stress and social interactions; these stressors can begin before birth and continue as the individual develops.
A framework known as the
ecology of fear conceptualises the psychological impact that the fear of predatory animals can have on the individuals that they predate, such as altering their behavior and reducing their survival chances.
Fear-inducing interactions with predators may cause lasting effects on behavior and
PTSD-like changes in the brains of animals in the wild. These interactions can also cause a spike in stress hormones, such as cortisol, which can increase the risk of both the individual's death and their offspring.
Number of affected individuals
![Meganyctiphanes_norvegica2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Meganyctiphanes_norvegica2.jpg)
The number of individual animals in the wild is relatively unexplored in the scientific literature and estimates vary considerably. An analysis, undertaken in 2018, estimates (not including wild mammals) that there are 10 fish, 10 wild birds, 10 terrestrial
arthropod
Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a Segmentation (biology), segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and Arth ...
s and 10 marine arthropods, 10
annelid
The annelids (Annelida , from Latin ', "little ring"), also known as the segmented worms, are a large phylum, with over 22,000 extant species including ragworms, earthworms, and leeches. The species exist in and have adapted to various ecol ...
s, 10
molluscs
Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil sp ...
and 10
cnidaria
Cnidaria () is a phylum under kingdom Animalia containing over 11,000 species of aquatic animals found both in freshwater and marine environments, predominantly the latter.
Their distinguishing feature is cnidocytes, specialized cells that th ...
ns, for a total of 10 wild animals. It has been estimated that there are 2.25 times more wild mammals than wild birds in Britain, but the authors of this estimate assert that this calculation would likely be a severe underestimate when applied to the number of individual wild mammals in other continents. A 2022 study estimated that there are 20 quadrillion individual ants across the world.
Based on some of these estimates, it has been argued that the number of individual wild animals in existence is considerably higher, by an order of magnitude, than the number of animals humans kill for food each year,
with individuals in the wild making up over 99% of all sentient beings in existence.
Natural selection
In his
autobiography
An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life.
It is a form of biography.
Definition
The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...
, the naturalist and biologist
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
acknowledged that the existence of extensive suffering in nature was fully compatible with the workings of
natural selection
Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charle ...
, yet maintained that
pleasure
Pleasure refers to experience that feels good, that involves the enjoyment of something. It contrasts with pain or suffering, which are forms of feeling bad. It is closely related to value, desire and action: humans and other conscious anima ...
was the main driver of fitness-increasing behavior in organisms.
Evolutionary biologist
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ath ...
challenged Darwin's claim in his book ''
River Out of Eden
''River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life'' is a 1995 popular science book by Richard Dawkins. The book is about Darwinian evolution and summarizes the topics covered in his earlier books, ''The Selfish Gene'', '' The Extended Phenotype'' a ...
'', wherein he argued that wild animal suffering must be extensive due to the interplay of the following evolutionary mechanisms:
*
Selfish genes – genes are wholly indifferent to the well-being of individual organisms as long as DNA is passed on.
*
The struggle for existence
The concept of the struggle for existence concerns the competition or battle for resources needed to live. It can refer to human society, or to organisms in nature. The concept is ancient, and the term ''struggle for existence'' was in use by the ...
– competition over limited resources results in the majority of organisms dying before passing on their genes.
*
Malthusian checks – even bountiful periods within a given ecosystem eventually lead to overpopulation and subsequent population crashes.
From this, Dawkins concludes that the natural world must necessarily contain enormous amounts of animal suffering as an inevitable consequence of
Darwinian evolution
Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that ...
.
To illustrate this he writes:
The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.
Reproductive strategies and population dynamics
![Rat litter](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Rat_litter.jpg)
Some writers have argued that the prevalence of
''r''-selected animals in the wild—who produce large numbers of offspring, with a low amount of parental care, and of which only a small number, in a stable population, will survive to adulthood—indicates that the average life of these individuals is likely to be very short and end in a painful death.
The pathologist
Keith Simpson described this as follows:
In the wild, plagues of excess population are a rarity. The seas are not crowded with sunfish; the ponds are not brimming with toads; elephants do not stand shoulder to shoulder over the land. With few exceptions, animal populations are remarkably stable. On average, of each pair's offspring, only sufficient survive to replace the parents when they die. Surplus young die, and birth rates are balanced by death rates. In the case of spawners and egg layers, some young are killed before hatching. Almost half of all blackbird eggs are taken by jays, but even so, each pair usually manages to fledge about four young. By the end of summer, however, an average of under two are still alive. Since one parent will probably die or be killed during the winter, only one of the young will survive to breed the following summer. The high mortality rate among young animals is an inevitable consequence of high fecundity. Of the millions of fry produced by a pair of sunfish, only one or two escape starvation, disease or predators. Half the young of house mice living on the Welsh island of Skokholm are lost before weaning. Even in large mammals, the lives of the young can be pathetically brief and the killing wholesale. During the calving season, many young wildebeeste, still wet, feeble and bewildered, are seized and torn apart by jackals, hyenas and lions within minutes of emerging from their mothers' bellies. Three out of every four die violently within six months.
According to this view, the lives of the majority of animals in the wild likely contain more suffering than happiness, since a painful death would outweigh any short-lived moments of happiness experienced in their short lives.
Welfare economist
Yew-Kwang Ng
Yew-Kwang Ng (; English pronunciation or simply ; born August 7, 1942) is a Malaysian-Australian economist, who is currently Special Chair Professor of Economics at Fudan University, Shanghai, and a Distinguished Fellow of the Academy of th ...
has argued that
evolutionary dynamics
Evolutionary dynamics is the study of the Mathematics, mathematical principles according to which biological organisms as well as cultural ideas evolve and Evolution, evolved. This is mostly achieved through the mathematical discipline of populat ...
can lead to welfare outcomes that are worse than necessary for a given population equilibrium.
A 2019 follow-up challenged the conclusions of Ng's original paper.
History of concern for wild animals
Religious views
Problem of evil
![Hercus fontinalis later instar larvae](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Hercus_fontinalis_later_instar_larvae.jpg)
The idea that suffering is common in nature has been observed by several writers historically who engaged with the problem of evil. In his notebooks (written between 1487 and 1505), Italian polymath
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
described the suffering experienced by animals in the wild due to predation and reproduction, questioning: "Why did nature not ordain that one animal should not live by the death of another?" In his 1779 posthumous work ''
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
''Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion'' is a philosophical work by the Scottish philosopher David Hume, first published in 1779. Through dialogue, three philosophers named Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes debate the nature of God's existence. Whet ...
'', the philosopher
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment philo ...
described the antagonism inflicted by animals upon each other and the psychological impact experienced by the victims, observing: "The stronger prey upon the weaker, and keep them in perpetual terror and anxiety."
In ''
Natural Theology
Natural theology, once also termed physico-theology, is a type of theology that seeks to provide arguments for theological topics (such as the existence of a deity) based on reason and the discoveries of science.
This distinguishes it from ...
'', published in 1802, Christian philosopher
William Paley
William Paley (July 174325 May 1805) was an English clergyman, Christian apologist, philosopher, and utilitarian. He is best known for his natural theology exposition of the teleological argument for the existence of God in his work ''Natural T ...
argued that animals in the wild die as a result of violence, decay, disease, starvation and malnutrition, and that they exist in a state of suffering and misery; their suffering unaided by their fellow animals. He compared this to humans, who even when they can't relieve the suffering of their fellow humans, at least provide them with necessities. Paley also engaged with the reader of his book, asking whether, based on these observations, "you would alter the present system of pursuit and prey?"
Additionally, he argued that "the subject ... of animals devouring one another, forms the chief, if not the only instance, in the works of the Deity ... in which the character of utility can be called in question."
However, he defended predation as being a part of God's design by asserting that it was a solution to the problem of superfecundity;
animals producing more offspring than can possibly survive.
Paley also contended that venom is a merciful way for poisonous animals to kill the animals that they predate.
The problem of evil has also been extended to include the suffering of animals in the context of evolution.
In ''Phytologia, or the Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening'', published in 1800,
Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Robert Darwin (12 December 173118 April 1802) was an English physician. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment, he was also a natural philosopher, physiologist, slave-trade abolitionist, inventor, and poet.
His poems ...
, a physician and the grandfather of Charles Darwin, aimed to vindicate the goodness of God allowing the consumption of "lower" animals by "higher" ones, by asserting that "more pleasurable sensation exists in the world, as the organic matter is taken from a state of less irritability and less sensibility and converted into a greater"; he claimed that this process secures the greatest happiness for sentient beings. Writing in response, in 1894,
Edward Payson Evans
Edward Payson Evans (December 8, 1831 – March 6, 1917) was an American scholar, linguist and early advocate for animal rights. He is best known for his 1906 book on animal trials, ''The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals.'' ...
, a linguist and early advocate for animal rights, argued that evolution, which regards the antagonism between animals purely as events within the context of a "universal struggle for existence", has disregarded this kind of
theodicy
Theodicy () means vindication of God. It is to answer the question of why a good God permits the manifestation of evil, thus resolving the issue of the problem of evil. Some theodicies also address the problem of evil "to make the existence of ...
and ended "teleological attempts to infer from the nature and operations of creation the moral character of the Creator".
In an 1856 letter to
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (30 June 1817 – 10 December 1911) was a British botanist and explorer in the 19th century. He was a founder of geographical botany and Charles Darwin's closest friend. For twenty years he served as director of t ...
, Charles Darwin remarked sarcastically on the cruelty and wastefulness of nature, describing it as something that a "Devil's chaplain" could write about. Writing in 1860, to
Asa Gray
Asa Gray (November 18, 1810 – January 30, 1888) is considered the most important American botanist of the 19th century. His ''Darwiniana'' was considered an important explanation of how religion and science were not necessarily mutually excl ...
, Darwin asserted that he could not reconcile an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God with the intentional existence of the
Ichneumonidae
The Ichneumonidae, also known as the ichneumon wasps, Darwin wasps, or ichneumonids, are a family (biology), family of parasitoid wasps of the insect order Hymenoptera. They are one of the most diverse groups within the Hymenoptera with roughly 2 ...
, a parasitoid wasp family, the larvae of which feed internally on the living bodies of caterpillars. In his autobiography, published in 1887, Darwin described a feeling of revolt at the idea that God's benevolence is limited, stating: "for what advantage can there be in the sufferings of millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time?"
Eastern perspectives
Philosopher
Ole Martin Moen argues that unlike Western, Judeo-Christian views, Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism "all hold that the natural world is filled with suffering, that suffering is bad for all who endure it, and that our ultimate aim should be to bring suffering to an end."
= Buddhism
=
In Buddhist doctrine,
rebirth
Rebirth may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Film
* ''Rebirth'' (2011 film), a 2011 Japanese drama film
* ''Rebirth'' (2016 film), a 2016 American thriller film
* ''Rebirth'', a documentary film produced by Project Rebirth
* ''The Re ...
as an animal is regarded as evil because of the different forms of suffering that animals experience due to humans and natural processes. Buddhists may also regard the suffering experienced by animals in nature as evidence for the truth of ''
dukkha''.
The Buddhist scripture
Aṅguttara Nikāya
The Anguttara Nikaya ('; , also translated "Gradual Collection" or "Numerical Discourses") is a Buddhist scripture, the fourth of the five nikayas, or collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that comprise the Pali ...
describes the lives of wild animals as "so cruel, so harsh, so painful".
The Indian
Buddhist sutra, ''Saddharmasmṛtyupasthānasūtra'', written in the first half of the first millennium, categorises the different forms of suffering experienced by the animals living in the water, on the earth and in the sky and draws attention to certain animals who can be liberated from their suffering through consciousness: "There are those
nimalswho—
hough Hough may refer to:
* Hamstringing, or severing the Achilles tendon of an animal
* the leg or Tibia, shin of an animal (in the Scots language), from which the dish potted hough is made
* Hough (surname)
Communities United Kingdom
* Hough, Alderle ...
fearful of predation, of threats, beatings, cold, heat, and bad weather—if capable, disregard their trembling and, just for a moment, arouse a mind of faith towards the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha."
Around 700 AD, the Indian Buddhist monk and scholar
Shantideva
Shantideva (Sanskrit: Śāntideva; ; ; mn, Шантидэва гэгээн; vi, Tịch Thiên) was an 8th-century CE Indian philosopher, Buddhist monk, poet, and scholar at the mahavihara of Nalanda. He was an adherent of the Mādhyamaka philo ...
wrote in his ''
Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra
The ''Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra'' or ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'' ( sa, बोधिसत्त्वाचर्यावतार; Tibetan: བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའི་སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་འཇུག་པ་ ''b ...
'':
And may the stooping animals be freed
From fear of being preyed upon, each other's food.
Patrul Rinpoche
Patrul Rinpoche ( Wylie: ''dpal sprul rin po che'') (1808–1887) was a teacher and author from the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism.
Biography
Patrul Rinpoche was born in Dzachukha, a nomadic area of Golok Dzachukha, Eastern Tibet in 1808, a ...
, a 19th-century
Tibetan Buddhist
Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...
teacher, described animals in the ocean as experiencing "immense suffering", as a result of predation, as well as parasites burrowing inside them and eating them alive. He also described animals on land as existing in a state of continuous fear and of killing and being killed.
= Hinduism
=
Hindu literature has been described as holding the lives and welfare of wild animals as equal with that of humans.
18th century
In ''
Histoire Naturelle
The ''Histoire Naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du Cabinet du Roi'' (; en, Natural History, General and Particular, with a Description of the King's Cabinet, italic=yes) is an encyclopaedic collection of 36 large (qu ...
'', published in 1753, the naturalist
Buffon described wild animals as suffering much want in the winter, focusing specifically on the plight of stags who are exhausted by the
rutting season, which in turn leads to the breeding of parasites under their skin, further adding to their misery.
Later in the book, he described predation as necessary to prevent the superabundance of animals who produce vast numbers of offspring, who if not killed would have their fecundity diminished due to a lack of food and would die as a result of disease and starvation. Buffon concluded that "violent deaths seem to be equally as necessary as natural ones; they are both modes of destruction and renovation; the one serves to preserve nature in a perpetual spring, and the other maintains the order of her productions, and limits the number of each species."
Herder
A herder is a pastoral worker responsible for the care and management of a herd or flock of domestic animals, usually on open pasture. It is particularly associated with nomadic or transhumant management of stock, or with common land grazing. ...
, a philosopher and theologian, in ''Ideen zur Philosphie der Geschichte der Menschheit'', published between 1784 and 1791, argued that animals exist in a state of constant striving, needing to provide for their own subsistence and to defend their lives. He contended that nature ensured peace in creation by creating an equilibrium of animals with different instincts and belonging to different species who live opposed to each other.
19th century
![Lewis_Gompertz](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Lewis_Gompertz.png)
In 1824,
Lewis Gompertz
Lewis Gompertz ( – 2 December 1861) was an English writer and inventor, and early animal rights and veganism advocate. He was a founding member, in June 1824, of the English Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; later the RSPCA. Go ...
, an early
vegan
Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal product—particularly in diet—and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. An individual who follows the diet or philosophy is known as a vegan. Di ...
and
animal rights
Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the sa ...
activist, published ''
Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes
''Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes'' is an 1824 book by Lewis Gompertz, an early animal rights advocate and vegan. In the book, Gompertz lays out a moral framework for the treatment of and obligations towards humans and other ...
'', in which he advocated for an egalitarian view towards animals and aiding animals suffering in the wild.
Gompertz asserted that humans and animals in their natural state both suffer similarly:
th of them being miserably subject to almost every evil, destitute of the means of palliating them; living in the continual apprehension of immediate starvation, of destruction by their enemies, which swarm around them; of receiving dreadful injuries from the revengeful and malicious feelings of their associates, uncontrolled by laws or by education, and acting as their strength alone dictates; without proper shelter from the inclemencies of the weather; without proper attention and medical or surgical aid in sickness; destitute frequently of fire, of candle-light, and (in man) also of clothing; without amusements or occupations, excepting a few, the chief of which are immediately necessary for their existence, and subject to all the ill consequences arising from the want of them.
Gompertz also argued that as much as animals suffer in the wild, that they suffer much more at the hands of humans because, in their natural state, they have the capacity to also experience periods of much enjoyment.
Additionally, he contended that if he was to encounter a situation where an animal was eating another, that he would intervene to help the animal being attacked, even if "this might probably be wrong."
In his 1852 book ''Fragments in Defence of Animals, and Essays on Morals, Soul, and Future State'', Gompertz compared the suffering of animals in the wild to the suffering inflicted by humans, stating: "Much as animals suffer in a natural state, much more do they seem to suffer when under the dominion of the generality of men. What suffering in the former can be supposed to equal the constant torture of a hackney-coach horse?"
Philosopher and poet
Giacomo Leopardi
Count Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi (, ; 29 June 1798 – 14 June 1837) was an Italian philosopher, poet, essayist, and philologist. He is considered the greatest Italian poet of the nineteenth century and one of ...
in his 1824 "Dialogue between Nature and an Icelander", from ''
Operette morali'', used images of animal predation, which he rejected as having value, to represent nature's cycles of creation and destruction.
Writing in his notebooks, ''
Zibaldone di pensieri'', published posthumously in 1898, Leopardi asserted that predation is a leading example of the evil design of nature.
In 1851, the philosopher
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the prod ...
commented on the vast amount of suffering in nature, drawing attention to the asymmetry between the pleasure experienced by a carnivorous animal and the suffering of the animal that they are consuming, stating: "Whoever wants summarily to test the assertion that the pleasure in the world outweighs the pain, or at any rate that the two balance each other, should compare the feelings of an animal that is devouring another with those of that other".
In the 1874 posthumous essay "
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...
",
utilitarian
In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals.
Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different charac ...
philosopher
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament (MP) and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to ...
wrote about suffering in nature and the imperative of struggling against it:
In sober truth, nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another, are nature's every day performances. ... The phrases which ascribe perfection to the course of nature can only be considered as the exaggerations of poetic or devotional feeling, not intended to stand the test of a sober examination. No one, either religious or irreligious, believes that the hurtful agencies of nature, considered as a whole, promote good purposes, in any other way than by inciting human rational creatures to rise up and struggle against them. ... Whatsoever, in nature, gives indication of beneficent design proves this beneficence to be armed only with limited power; and the duty of man is to cooperate with the beneficent powers, not by imitating, but by perpetually striving to amend, the course of nature—and bringing that part of it over which we can exercise control more nearly into conformity with a high standard of justice and goodness.
In his 1892 book ''
Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress,'' the writer and early activist for animal rights
Henry Stephens Salt
Henry Shakespear Stephens Salt (; 20 September 1851 – 19 April 1939) was an English writer and campaigner for social reform in the fields of prisons, schools, economic institutions, and the treatment of animals. He was a noted ethical vegeta ...
focused an entire chapter on the plight of wild animals, "The Case of Wild Animals". Salt wrote that the rights of animals should not be dependent on the rights of being property and that sympathy and protection should be extended to non-owned animals too.
He also argued that humans are justified in killing wild animals in self-defense, but that neither unnecessary killing nor torturing harmless beings is justified.
20th century
![Portrait_of_J](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Portrait_of_J._Howard_Moore.jpg)
In the 1906 book ''
The Universal Kinship'', the zoologist and utilitarian philosopher
J. Howard Moore
John Howard Moore (December 4, 1862 – June 17, 1916) was an American zoologist, philosopher, educator, humanitarian and socialist. He is considered to be an early, yet neglected, proponent of animal rights and ethical vegetarianism, and was a ...
argued that the
egoism
Egoism is a philosophy concerned with the role of the self, or , as the motivation and goal of one's own action. Different theories of egoism encompass a range of disparate ideas and can generally be categorized into descriptive or normative ...
of
sentient beings
Sentience is the capacity to experience feelings and sensations. The word was first coined by philosophers in the 1630s for the concept of an ability to feel, derived from Latin '' sentientem'' (a feeling), to distinguish it from the ability to ...
—a product of natural selection—which leads them to exploit their sentient fellows, was the "most mournful and immense fact in the phenomena of conscious life", and speculated whether an ordinary human who was sufficiently sympathetic to the welfare of the world could significantly improve this situation if only given the opportunity. In ''Ethics and Education'', published in 1912, Moore critiqued the human conception of animals in the wild: "Many of these non-human beings are so remote from human beings in language, appearance, interests, and ways of life, as to be nothing but 'wild animals.' These 'wild things' have, of course, no rights whatever in the eyes of men."
Later in the book, he described them as independent beings who suffer and enjoy in the same way humans do and have their "own ends and justifications of life."
In his 1952 article "Which Shall We Protect? Thoughts on the Ethics of the Treatment of Free Life",
Alexander Skutch, a naturalist and writer, explored five ethical principles that humans could follow when considering their relationship with animals in the wild, including the principle of only considering human interests; the ''laissez-faire'', or "hands-off" principle; the do no harm,
ahimsa
Ahimsa (, IAST: ''ahiṃsā'', ) is the ancient Indian principle of nonviolence which applies to all living beings. It is a key virtue in most Indian religions: Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.Bajpai, Shiva (2011). The History of India ...
principle; the principle of favoring the "higher animals", which are most similar to ourselves; the principle of "harmonious association", whereby humans and animals in the wild could live symbiotically, with each providing benefits to the other and individuals who disrupt this harmony, such as predators, are removed. Skutch endorsed a combination of the ''laissez-faire'', ahimsa and harmonious association approaches as the way to create the ultimate harmony between humans and animals in the wild.
Moral philosopher
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher, currently the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, ...
, in 1973, responded to a question on whether humans have a moral obligation to prevent predation, arguing that intervening in this way may cause more suffering in the long-term, but asserting that he would support actions if the long-term outcome was positive.
In 1979, the animal rights philosopher
Stephen R. L. Clark, published "The Rights of Wild Things", in which he argued that humans should protect animals in the wild from particularly large dangers, but that humans do not have an obligation to regulate all of their relationships. The following year,
J. Baird Callicott
J. Baird Callicott (born 1941) is an American philosopher whose work has been at the forefront of the new field of environmental philosophy and ethics. He is a University Distinguished Research Professor and a member of the Department of Philos ...
, an environmental ethicist, published "Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair", in which he compared the ethical underpinnings of the
animal liberation movement
The animal rights (AR) movement, sometimes called the animal liberation, animal personhood, or animal advocacy movement, is a social movement that seeks an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals, ...
, asserting that it is based on
Benthamite principles, and
Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold (January 11, 1887 – April 21, 1948) was an American writer, philosopher, naturalist, scientist, ecologist, forester, conservationist, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his ...
's
land ethic
A land ethic is a philosophy or theoretical framework about how, ethically, humans should regard the land. The term was coined by Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) in his '' A Sand County Almanac'' (1949), a classic text of the environmental movement. T ...
, which he used as a model for
environmental ethics
In environmental philosophy, environmental ethics is an established field of practical philosophy "which reconstructs the essential types of argumentation that can be made for protecting natural entities and the sustainable use of natural resourc ...
. Callicott concluded that intractable differences exist between the two ethical positions when it comes to the issue of wild animal suffering.
In his 1987 book, ''
Morals, Reason, and Animals'', animal rights philosopher
Steve F. Sapontzis argued that from an antispeciesist perspective, humans should aid animals suffering in the wild, as long as a greater harm is not inflicted overall.
In 1991, the environmental philosopher
Arne Næss
Arne Dekke Eide Næss (; 27 January 1912 – 12 January 2009) was a Norwegian philosopher who coined the term " deep ecology", an important intellectual and inspirational figure within the environmental movement of the late twentieth centur ...
critiqued what he termed the "cult of nature" of contemporary and historical attitudes of indifference towards suffering in nature. He argued that humans should confront the reality of the wilderness, including disturbing natural processes—when feasible—to relieve suffering.
In his 1993 article "Pourquoi je ne suis pas écologiste" ("Why I am not an environmentalist"), published in the antispeciesist journal ''
Cahiers antispécistes'', the animal rights philosopher
David Olivier argued that he is opposed to environmentalists because they consider predation to be good because of the preservation of species and "
natural balance", while Olivier gives consideration to the suffering of the individual animal being predated. He also asserted that if the environmentalists were themselves at risk of being predated, they wouldn't follow the "order of nature". Olivier concluded: "I don't want to turn the universe into a planned, man-made world. Synthetic food for foxes, contraception for hares, I only half like that. I have a problem that I do not know how to solve, and I am unlikely to find a solution, even theoretical, as long as I am (almost) alone looking for one."
21st century
Publications
![Brian Tomasik, March 2014, in Basel, Switzerland](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Brian_Tomasik%2C_March_2014%2C_in_Basel%2C_Switzerland.jpg)
In 2009, essayist Brian Tomasik published the essay, "The Importance of Wild-Animal Suffering". In the essay, Tomasik makes the case that the number of individual wild animals in existence is significantly larger than the number of non-human animals used by humans and that, as a result, animal advocates should focus on promoting concern for the suffering experienced by animals in their natural environments. He also makes the point that as much as there is a vast amount of suffering existing in the present, that human descendants could increase the amount of wild animal suffering in existence astronomically, if these descendants chose to multiply wild animal suffering, rather than preventing it.
In 2015, a version of the essay was published in the journal ''
Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism'',
in the special two-volume issue "Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature", which collected contributions from a number of authors on the topic of wild animal suffering.
Jeff McMahan's 2010 essay "
The Meat Eaters "The Meat Eaters" is a 2010 essay by the American philosopher Jeff McMahan, published as an op-ed in ''The New York Times''. In the essay, McMahan asserts that humans have a moral obligation to stop eating meat and, in a conclusion considered to be ...
" was published by ''The New York Times'', in which he argued in favor of taking steps to reduce animal suffering in the wild, particularly by reducing predation. In the same year, McMahan published "Predators: A Response", a reply to the criticism he received for his original article.
''
Vox'' has published multiple articles on the topic of wild animal suffering. In 2015, it published sociologist
Jacy Reese Anthis
Jacy Reese Anthis ( ; born December 16, 1992), who has written under the name Jacy Reese, is an American social scientist, writer and co-founder of the Sentience Institute with Kelly Witwicki. He previously worked as a Senior Fellow at Sentien ...
's article "Wild animals endure illness, injury, and starvation. We should help.";
in his 2018 book ''
The End of Animal Farming'', Anthis discusses expanding the circle of human moral concern to include invertebrates and animals suffering in the wild. In 2021, ''Vox'' published the journalist
Dylan Matthews
Dylan Matthews is an American journalist. He is currently a correspondent for ''Vox (website), Vox'', an online media venture.
Professional life
Early writing
In 2004, at the age of 14, Matthews launched a personal blog on politics and other is ...
's article "The wild frontier of animal welfare", which analyzed the views of various philosophers and scientists on the topic.
The digital magazine
''Aeon'' has published essays by philosophers which discuss wild animal suffering, "We have an ethical obligation to relieve individual animal suffering" (2018)
and "All we owe to animals" (2020).
Philosopher
Catia Faria
Catia Faria (born 1980) is a Portuguese moral philosopher and activist for animal rights and feminism. She is assistant professor in Applied Ethics at the Complutense University of Madrid, and is a board member of the UPF-Centre for Animal Ethi ...
, in 2016, successfully defended her
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
thesis, ''Animal Ethics Goes Wild: The Problem of Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature''; the first thesis of its kind to argue that humans have an obligation to help animals in the wild. In 2022, she is expected to publish a book on the topic, ''Animal Ethics in the Wild: Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature''.
In 2020, philosopher
Kyle Johannsen
Kyle Johannsen is a Canadian philosopher who is the author of a ''A Conceptual Investigation of Justice'' (2018) and '' Wild Animal Ethics'' (2020). He specialises in animal and environmental ethics, as well as political and social philosophy. He ...
published ''
Wild Animal Ethics: The Moral and Political Problem of Wild Animal Suffering''. The book argues that wild animal suffering is a pressing moral issue and that humans have a collective moral duty to intervene in nature to reduce suffering. In the same year, a symposium was held at
Queen's University on Johannsen's book.
Animal rights activist and philosopher
Oscar Horta
Óscar Horta Álvarez (born 7 May 1974) is a Spanish animal activist and moral philosopher who is currently a professor in the Department of Philosophy and Anthropology at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) and one of the co-founders ...
published ''Making a Stand for Animals'', in 2022, which includes a chapter titled "In defense of animals!", which argues that giving moral consideration to animals implies aiding them when they suffer due to natural processes.
Organizations
In response to arguments for the moral and political importance of wild animal suffering, a number of organizations have been created to research and address the issue. Two of these, Utility Farm and Wild-Animal Suffering Research merged in 2019 to form
Wild Animal Initiative. The nonprofit organization
Animal Ethics
Animal ethics is a branch of ethics which examines human-animal relationships, the moral consideration of animals and how nonhuman animals ought to be treated. The subject matter includes animal rights, animal welfare, animal law, speciesism, an ...
also researches wild animal suffering and advocates on behalf of wild animals, among other populations. Rethink Priorities is a research organization which, among other topics, has conducted research on wild animal suffering, particularly around invertebrate sentience and invertebrate welfare.
The
Wildlife Disaster Network was founded in 2020 with the intention of helping wild animals suffering in natural disasters. Jamie Payton, who works for the network, challenges the view that wild animals in disasters situations manage best when left alone, stating: "Without human interference, these animals will suffer and succumb, due not only to their injuries but also to the loss of food, water and habitat. It is our obligation to provide the missing link for the wildlife that share our home."
Philosophical status
Predation as a moral problem
Predation has been considered a moral problem by some philosophers, who argue that humans have an obligation to prevent it,
while others argue that intervention is not ethically required.
Others have argued that humans shouldn't do anything about it right now because there's a chance we'll unwittingly cause serious harm, but that with better information and technology, it may be possible to take meaningful action in the future.
An obligation to prevent predation has been considered untenable or absurd by some writers, who have used the position as a ''
reductio ad absurdum
In logic, (Latin for "reduction to absurdity"), also known as (Latin for "argument to absurdity") or ''apagogical arguments'', is the form of argument that attempts to establish a claim by showing that the opposite scenario would lead to absu ...
'' to reject the concept of animal rights altogether.
Others have argued that attempting to reduce it would be environmentally harmful.
Arguments for intervention
Animal rights and welfare perspectives
![Oscar horta](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Oscar_horta.jpg)
Some theorists have reflected on whether the harms animals suffer in the wild should be accepted or if something should be done to mitigate them.
The moral basis for interventions aimed at reducing wild animal suffering can be rights or welfare based. Advocates of such interventions argue that non-intervention is inconsistent with either of these approaches.
From a rights-based perspective, if animals have a moral right to life or bodily integrity, intervention may be required to prevent such rights from being violated by other animals.
Animal rights philosopher
Tom Regan
Tom Regan (; November 28, 1938 – February 17, 2017) was an American philosopher who specialized in animal rights theory. He was professor emeritus of philosophy at North Carolina State University, where he had taught from 1967 until his reti ...
was critical of this view; he argued that because animals aren't moral agents, in the sense of being morally responsible for their actions, they can't violate each other's rights. Based on this, he concluded that humans don't need to concern themselves with preventing suffering of this kind, unless such interactions were strongly influenced by humans.
Oscar Horta argues that it is a mistaken perception that the animal rights position implies a respect for natural processes because of the assumption that animals in the wild live easy and happy lives, when in reality, they live short and painful lives full of suffering.
It has also been argued that a non-speciesist legal system would mean animals in the wild would be entitled to positive rights—similar to what humans are entitled to by their species-membership—which would give them the legal right to food, shelter, healthcare and protection.
From a welfare-based perspective, a requirement to intervene may arise insofar as it is possible to prevent some of the suffering experienced by wild animals without causing even more suffering.
Katie McShane argues that biodiversity is not a good proxy for wild animal welfare: "A region with high biodiversity is full of lots of different kinds of individuals. They might be suffering; their lives might be barely worth living. But if they are alive, they count positively toward biodiversity."
Non-intervention as a form of speciesism
Some writers have argued that humans refusing to aid animals suffering in the wild, when they would help humans suffering in a similar situation, is an example of
speciesism
Speciesism () is a term used in philosophy regarding the treatment of individuals of different species. The term has several different definitions within the relevant literature. A common element of most definitions is that speciesism involves t ...
;
the differential treatment or moral consideration of individuals based on their species membership.
Jamie Mayerfeld contends that a duty to relive suffering which is blind to species membership implies an obligation to relieve the suffering of animals due to natural processes. Stijn Bruers argues that even long-term animal rights activists sometimes hold speciesist views when it comes to this specific topic, which he calls a "moral blind spot". His view is echoed by Eze Paez, who asserts that advocates who disregard the interests of animals purely because they live in the wild are responsible for the same form of discrimination used by those who justify the exploitation of animals by humans. Oscar Horta argues that spreading awareness of speciesism will in turn increase concern for the plight of animals in the wild.
Humans already intervene to further human interests
Oscar Horta asserts that humans are constantly intervening in nature, in significant ways, to further human interests, such as furthering environmentalist ideals. He criticizes how interventions are considered to be realistic, safe or acceptable when their aims favor humans, but not when they focus on helping wild animals. He argues that humans should shift the aim of these interventions to consider the interests of sentient beings; not just humans.
Human responsibility for enhancing natural harms
Philosopher
Martha Nussbaum
Martha Craven Nussbaum (; born May 6, 1947) is an American philosopher and the current Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is jointly appointed in the law school and the philosoph ...
asserts that humans continually "affect the habitats of animals, determining opportunities for nutrition, free movement, and other aspects of flourishing" and contends that the pervasive human involvement in natural processes means that humans have a moral responsibility to help individuals affected by our actions. She also argues that humans may have the capacity to help animals suffering due to entirely natural processes, such as diseases and natural disasters and asserts that way may have duties to provide care in these cases.
Jeff Sebo, a philosopher, argues that animals in the wild suffer as a result of natural processes, as well as human-caused harms. He asserts that climate change is making existing harms more severe and creating new harms for these individuals. From this, he concludes that there are two reasons to help individual animals in the wild: "they are suffering and dying, and we are either partly or wholly responsible".
Similarly, philosopher
Steven Nadler argues that climate change means "that the scope of actions that are proscribed – and, especially, prescribed – by a consideration of animal suffering should be broadened".
However, Nadler goes further, asserting that humans have a moral obligation to help individual animals suffering in the wild regardless of human responsibility.
Arguments against intervention
Practicality of intervening in nature
![Peter Singer MIT Veritas](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Peter_Singer_MIT_Veritas.jpg)
A common objection to intervening in nature is that it would be impractical, either because of the amount of work involved or because the complexity of
ecosystem
An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...
s would make it difficult to know whether or not an intervention would be net beneficial on balance.
Aaron Simmons argues that humans should not intervene to save animals in nature because doing so would result in
unintended consequences
In the social sciences, unintended consequences (sometimes unanticipated consequences or unforeseen consequences) are outcomes of a purposeful action that are not intended or foreseen. The term was popularised in the twentieth century by Ameri ...
such as damaging ecosystems, interfering with human projects, or resulting in more animal deaths overall.
Nicolas Delon and Duncan Purves argue that the "nature of ecosystems leaves us with no reason to predict that interventions would reduce, rather than exacerbate, suffering".
Peter Singer has argued that intervention in nature would be justified if one could be reasonably confident that this would greatly reduce wild animal suffering and death in the long run. In practice, however, Singer cautions against interfering with ecosystems because he fears that doing so would cause more harm than good.
Other authors dispute Singer's empirical claim about the likely consequences of intervening in the natural world and argue that some types of intervention can be expected to produce good consequences overall. Economist
Tyler Cowen
Tyler Cowen (; born January 21, 1962) is an American economist, columnist and blogger. He is a professor at George Mason University, where he holds the Holbert L. Harris chair in the economics department. He hosts the economics blog ''Marginal R ...
cites examples of animal species whose extinction is not generally regarded as having been on balance bad for the world. Cowen also notes that insofar as humans are already intervening in nature, the relevant practical question is not whether there should be intervention, but what particular forms of intervention should be favored.
Oscar Horta similarly writes that there are already many cases in which humans intervene in nature for other reasons, such as for human interest in nature and environmental preservation as something valuable in their own rights.
Horta has also proposed that courses of action aiming at helping wild animals should be carried out and adequately monitored first in urban, suburban, industrial, or agricultural areas.
Likewise, Jeff McMahan argues that since humans "are already causing massive, precipitate changes in the natural world," humans should favor those changes that would promote the survival "of herbivorous rather than carnivorous species."
Peter Vallentyne
Peter Vallentyne (; born March 25, 1952, in New Haven, Connecticut) is Florence G. Kline Professor of Philosophy at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. He holds dual citizenship in the United States and Canada.
Biography
Vallenty ...
, a philosopher, suggests that, while humans should not eliminate predators in nature, they can intervene to help prey in more limited ways. In the same way that humans help humans in need when the cost to us is small, humans might help some wild animals at least in limited circumstances.
Potential conflict between animal rights and environmentalism
It has been argued that the environmentalist goal of preserving certain abstract entities such as species and ecosystems and a policy of non-interference in regard to natural processes is incompatible with animal rights views, which place the welfare and interests of individual animals at the center of concern.
Examples include environmentalists supporting hunting for species population control, while animal rights advocates oppose it;
animal rights advocates arguing for the extinction or reengineering of carnivores or ''r-''strategist species, while
deep ecologist
Deep ecology is an environmental philosophy that promotes the inherent worth of all living beings regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs, and the restructuring of modern human societies in accordance with such ideas.
Deep ecolo ...
s defend their right to be and flourish as they are;
animal rights advocates defending the reduction of wildlife habitats or arguing against their expansion out of concern that most animal suffering takes place within them, while environmentalists want to safeguard and expand them.
Oscar Horta argues that there are instances where environmentalists and animal rights advocates may both support approaches that would consequently reduce wild animal suffering.
Intrinsic value of ecological processes, wilderness and wildness
Some writers, such as the environmental ethicist
Holmes Rolston III, argue that natural animal suffering is valuable because it serves an ecological purpose and that only animal suffering due to non-natural processes is morally bad and, as a result, humans do not have a duty to intervene in cases of suffering caused by natural processes. Rolston celebrates carnivores in nature because of the significant ecological role they play.
Others argue that the reason that humans have a duty to protect other humans from predation, but not wild animals, is that humans are part of the cultural world rather than the natural world and so different rules apply to them in these situations.
Some writers assert that animals who are preyed upon are fulfilling their natural function, and thus flourishing when they are preyed upon or otherwise die, since this allows natural selection to work.
Yves Bonnardel, an animal rights philosopher, has criticized this view, as well as the concept of nature, which he describes as an "ideological tool" that places humans in a superior position above other animals, who exist only to perform certain ecosystem functions, such as a rabbit being food ''for'' a wolf. Bonnardel compares this with the religious idea that a slaves exist ''for'' their masters, or that woman exists ''for'' the sake of man. He argues that animals as individuals all have an interest in living.
Wilderness
Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural), are natural environments on Earth that have not been significantly modified by human activity or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally re ...
advocates argue that wilderness is intrinsically valuable; the biologist
E. O. Wilson
Edward Osborne Wilson (June 10, 1929 – December 26, 2021) was an American biologist, naturalist, entomologist and writer. According to David Attenborough, Wilson was the world's leading expert in his specialty of myrmecology, the study of an ...
wrote that "wilderness has virtue unto itself and needs no extraneous justification". Joshua Duclos describes the moral argument against preserving wilderness because of the suffering experienced by wild animals who live in them as the "objection from welfare".
Jack Walker argues that the "intrinsic value of wildness cannot be used to oppose large-scale interventions to reduce
ild animal suffering. Joshua Duclos that wilderness is given intrinsic value of from a narrow
anthropocentric
Anthropocentrism (; ) is the belief that human beings are the central or most important entity in the universe. The term can be used interchangeably with humanocentrism, and some refer to the concept as human supremacy or human exceptionalism. ...
perspective, with a religio-spiritual dimension.
Nature as idyllic
The idyllic view of nature is described as the widely-held view that happiness in nature is widespread.
Oscar Horta argues that even though many people are aware of the harms that animals in the wild experience, such as predation, starvation and disease, as well as recognizing that these animals may suffer as a result of these harms, they don't conclude from this that wild animals have bad enough lives to imply that nature is not a happy place. Horta also contends that a romantic conception of nature has significant implications for attitudes people have towards animals in the wild, as holders of the view may oppose interventions to reduce suffering.
Bob Fischer argues that many wild animals may have "net negative" lives (experiencing more pain than pleasure), even in the absence of human activity. However, Fischer argues that if many animals have net negative lives, then what is good for the animal, as an individual, may not be good for its species, other species, the climate or the preservation of biodiversity; for example, some animals may have to have their populations massively reduced and controlled and some species, such as parasites or predators, eliminated entirely.
Intervention as hubris
Some writers have argued that interventions to reduce wild animal suffering would be an example of arrogance, hubris, or
playing God, as such interventions could potentially have disastrous unforeseen consequences. They are also sceptical of the competence of humans when it comes to making correct moral judgements, as well as human fallibility. Additionally, they contend that the moral stance of humans and moral agency can lead to the imposition of anthropocentric or paternalistic values on others. To support these claims, they use the history of human negative impacts on nature, including
species extinction
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
s, wilderness and
resource depletion
Resource depletion is the consumption of a resource faster than it can be replenished. Natural resources are commonly divided between renewable resources and non-renewable resources (see also mineral resource classification). Use of either ...
, as well as climate change. From this, they conclude that the best way that humans can help animals in the wild is through the preservation of larger wilderness areas and by reducing the human sphere of influence on nature.
Critics of this position, such as Beril Sözmen, argue that human negative impacts are not inevitable and that, until recently, interventions were not undertaken with the goal of improving the well-being of individual animals in the wild. Furthermore, she contends that such examples of anthropogenic harms are not the consequence of misguided human intervention gone awry, but are actually the result of human agriculture and industry, which do not consider, or do not care, about their impact on nature and animals in the wild. Sözmen also asserts that the holders of this position may view that nature as exists in a delicate state of balance and have an overly romantic view of the lives of animals in the wild and, that she contends, actually contain vast amounts of suffering.
Martha Nussbaum argues that because humans are constantly intervening in nature, the central question should be what form should these interventions take, rather than whether interventions should take place, arguing that "intelligently respectful paternalism is vastly superior to neglect".
''Laissez-faire''
A ''laissez-faire'' view, which holds that humans should not harm animals in the wild, but do not have an obligation to aid these individuals when in need, has been defended by Tom Regan,
Elisa Aaltola
Elisa Aaltola (born 1976) is a Finnish philosopher, specialised in animal philosophy, moral psychology and environmental philosophy.
Biography
She was a visiting PhD student at the Institute for Ethics, Environment, and Public Policy at Lanca ...
, Clare Palmer and Ned Hettinger. Regan argued that the suffering animals inflict on each other should not be a concern of ethically motivated
wildlife management
Wildlife management is the management process influencing interactions among and between wildlife, its habitats and people to achieve predefined impacts. It attempts to balance the needs of wildlife with the needs of people using the best availabl ...
and that these wildlife managers should instead focus on letting animals in the wild exist as they are, with no human predation, and to "carve out their own destiny".
Aaltola similarly argues that predators should be left to flourish, despite the suffering that they cause to the animals that they predate.
[ p. 50] Palmer endorses a variant of this position, which claims that humans may have an obligation to assist wild animals if humans are responsible for their situation.
[Wilson, Scott D. (2011). "''Animal Ethics in Context'' by Palmer, Claire". ''Ethics'' 121 (4): 824–8. .] Hettinger argues for ''laissez-faire'' based on the environmental value of "Respect for an Independent Nature".
Catia Faria argues that following the principle that humans should only help individuals when they are being harmed by humans, rather than by natural processes, would also mean refusing to help humans and companion animals when they suffer due to natural processes, however, this implication does not seem acceptable to most people and she asserts that there are strong reasons to help these individuals when humans have capacity to do so. Faria argues that there is an obligation to help animals in the wild suffering in similar situations and, as a result, the ''laissez-faire'' view does not hold up. Similarly, Steven Nadler argues that it is morally wrong to refuse help to animals in the wild regardless of whether humans are indirectly or directly responsible for their suffering, as the same arguments used to decline aid to humans who were suffering due to natural harms such as famine, a tsunami or pneumonia would be considered immoral. He concludes that if the only thing that is morally relevant is an individual's capacity to suffer, there is no relevant moral difference between humans and other animals suffering in these situations.
In the same vein, Steve F. Sapontizis asserts that: "When our interests or the interests of those we care for will be hurt, we do not recognize a moral obligation to 'let nature take its course'".
Wild animal sovereignty
Some writers, such as the animal rights philosophers
Sue Donaldson and
Will Kymlicka
William Kymlicka (; born 1962) is a Canadian political philosopher best known for his work on multiculturalism and animal ethics. He is currently Professor of Philosophy and Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen's University ...
, in ''Zoopolis'', argue that humans should not perform large interventions to help animals in the wild. They assert that these interventions would be taking away their sovereignty, by removing the ability for these animals to govern themselves. Christiane Bailey asserts that certain wild animals, especially prosocial animals, have sufficient criteria to be considered as moral agents, that is to say, individuals capable of making moral judgments and who have responsibilities. She argues that aiding them would be reducing wild animals to beings incapable of making decisions for themselves.
Oscar Horta emphasizes the fact that although some individuals may form sovereign groups, the vast majority of wild animals are either solitary or re-selectors, whose population size varies greatly from year to year. He contends that most of their interactions would be
amensalism
Symbiosis (from Greek , , "living together", from , , "together", and , bíōsis, "living") is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction between two different biological organisms, be it mutualistic, commensalistic, or parasit ...
,
commensalism
Commensalism is a long-term biological interaction (symbiosis) in which members of one species gain benefits while those of the other species neither benefit nor are harmed. This is in contrast with mutualism, in which both organisms benefit fro ...
, antagonism or
competition
Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...
. Therefore, the majority of animals in the wild would not form sovereign communities if humans use the criteria established by Donaldson and Kymlicka.
Analogy with colonialism
Estiva Reus asserts that a comparison exists, from a certain perspective, between the spirit which animated the defenders of
colonialism
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their relig ...
who saw it as necessary human progress for "backward peoples", and the idea which inspires writers who argue for reforming nature in the interest of wild animals: the proponents of the two positions consider that they have the right and the duty, because of their superior skills, to model the existence of beings unable to remedy by their own means the evils which overwhelm them.
Thomas Lepeltier
Thomas Lepeltier (born 4 January 1967) is a French independent scholar, essayist and science writer specializing in the history and philosophy of science and applied ethics, known in particular for his contributions to the field of animal law. He ...
, a historian and writer on animal ethics, argues that "if colonization is to be criticized, it is because, beyond the rhetoric, it was an enterprise of spoliation and exaction exercised with great cruelty."
He also contends that writers who advocate for helping wild animals do not do so for their own benefit because they would have nothing to gain by helping these individuals. Lepeltier goes on to assert that the advocates for reducing wild animal suffering would be aware of their doubts about how best to help these individuals and that they would not act by considering them as rudimentary and simple to understand beings, contrary to the vision that the former colonizers had of colonized populations.
Intervention in practice
Existing forms of assistance
![Feeding_a_baby_squirrel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Feeding_a_baby_squirrel.jpg)
Existing ways that individual animals suffering in the wild are aided include providing medical care to sick and injured animals,
vaccinating
Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop immunity from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism or virus in a weakened, live or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulating ...
animals to prevent disease, taking care of orphaned animals, rescuing animals who are trapped, or in natural disasters, taking care of the needs of animals who are starving or thirsty, sheltering animals who are suffering due to weather conditions,
and using
contraception
Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth contr ...
to regulate population sizes.
History of interventions
![Rabies_vaccine_in_bait](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Rabies_vaccine_in_bait.jpg)
The
Bishnoi
Bishnoi (also known as Vishnoi) is a community found in the Western Thar Desert and northern states of India. They follow a set of 29 principles/commandments given by Guru Jambheshwar (also known as Guru Jambhoji, Guru Jambha Ji) (1451-1536) ...
, a Hindu sect founded in the 15th century, have a tradition of feeding wild animals. Some Bishnoi temples also act as rescue centres, where priests take care of injured animals; a few of these individuals are returned to the wild, while others remain, roaming freely in the temple compounds. The
Borana Oromo people
The Borana is one of the two major subgroups of the Oromo people. They live in the Borena Zone of the Oromia Region and Liben Zone of the Somali Region of Ethiopia, former Northern Frontier District of Northern Kenya,Tana River in the former co ...
leave out water overnight for wild animals to drink because they believe that the animals have a right to drinking water.
In 2002, the Australian Government authorized the killing of 15,000, out of 100,000, kangaroos who were trapped in a fenced-in national military base and suffering in a state of illness, misery and starvation. In 2016, 350 starving
hippo
The hippopotamus ( ; : hippopotamuses or hippopotami; ''Hippopotamus amphibius''), also called the hippo, common hippopotamus, or river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extant ...
s and
buffaloes at
Kruger National Park
Kruger National Park is a South African National Park and one of the largest game reserves in Africa. It covers an area of in the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga in northeastern South Africa, and extends from north to south and from ea ...
were killed by park rangers; one of the motives for the action was to prevent them from suffering as they died.
Rescues of multiple animals in the wild have taken place: in 1988, the US and Soviet governments collaborated in
Operation Breakthrough, to free three
gray whale
The gray whale (''Eschrichtius robustus''), also known as the grey whale,Britannica Micro.: v. IV, p. 693. gray back whale, Pacific gray whale, Korean gray whale, or California gray whale, is a baleen whale that migrates between feeding and bree ...
s who were trapped in
pack ice
Drift ice, also called brash ice, is sea ice that is not attached to the shoreline or any other fixed object (shoals, grounded icebergs, etc.).Leppäranta, M. 2011. The Drift of Sea Ice. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Unlike fast ice, which is "fasten ...
off the coast of Alaska; in 2018, a team of
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
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chicks, who had been abandoned by their parents, were rescued in South Africa; in the same year, nearly 5,000
sea turtles were rescued in Texas.
Vaccination programs have been successfully implemented to prevent
in wild animals. Wildlife contraception has been used to reduce and stabilize populations of
s.
It has been argued that in the future, based on research, feasibility and whether interventions could be carried out without increasing suffering overall, existing forms of assistance for wild animals could be employed on a larger scale to reduce suffering.
in wild animals.
When it comes to reducing suffering as a result of predation, propositions include removing predators from wild areas, refraining from
.
With predation due to cats and dogs, it has been recommended that these companion animals should always be sterilized to prevent the existence of
, that cats should be kept indoors and dogs kept on a leash, unless in designated areas.
Some writers, such as Brian Tomasik have argued from a
perspective, that following the conclusion that the majority of wild animals live negative lives, that loss of habitat, rather than being opposed, should be encouraged. Tyler M. John and Jeff Sebo have criticised this position, terming it the "Logic of the Logger", based on the concept of the "
".
for studying the welfare of animals, with a particular focus on their relationship with natural ecosystems.
It was first advanced in 1995 by Yew-Kwang Ng, who defined it as "the study of living things and their environment with respect to their welfare (defined as net happiness, or enjoyment minus suffering)".
Such research is intended to promote concern for animal suffering in the wild and to establish effective actions that can be undertaken to help these individuals in the future. The organizations Animal Ethics and Wild Animal Initiative promote the establishment of welfare biology as a field of research.
It has been argued that climate change may have a large direct impact on a number of animals, with the largest effect on individuals who belong to
that specialise in living in environments which could be most affected by climate change; this could then lead to replacement by individuals belonging to more generalist species. It has also been asserted that the indirect impact of climate change on wild animal suffering will be whether it leads to an increase or decrease of individuals being born into lives where they suffer and die shortly after coming into existence, with a large number of factors needing to be taken into consideration and requiring further study to assess this.
Several researchers and non-profit organizations have raised concern that human civilization may cause wild animal suffering outside
. For example, wild habitats may be created—or allowed to happen—on extraterrestrial
planets. Another example of a potential realization of the risk is
, as this could potentially lead to an immense increase in the amount of wild animal suffering in existence.
It has been argued that much of people's knowledge about wild animals comes from
, which have been described as non-representative of the reality of wild animal suffering because they underrepresent uncharismatic animals who may have the capacity to suffer, such as animals who are preyed upon, as well as small animals and invertebrates.
In addition, it is claimed that such documentaries focus on adult animals, while the majority of animals who likely suffer the most, die before reaching adulthood;
that wildlife documentaries don't generally show animals suffering from parasitism;
that such documentaries can leave viewers with the false impression that animals who have been attacked by predators and suffered serious injury survived and thrived afterwards; and that much of the particularly violent incidents of predation are not included.
what we leave on the cutting-room floor."
It is also contended that wildlife documentaries present nature as a spectacle to be passively consumed by viewers, as well as a sacred and unique place that needs protection. Additionally, attention is drawn to how hardships that are experienced by animals are portrayed in a way that give the impression that wild animals, through adaptive processes, are able to overcome these sources of harm. However, the development of such adaptive traits takes place over a number of generations of individuals who will likely experience much suffering and hardship in their lives, while passing down their genes.
and advocate for technological solutions for reducing the suffering of wild animals, is highly critical of how wildlife documentaries, which he refers to as "animal
Pearce also argues, through analogy, how the idea of intelligent aliens creating stylised portrayals of human deaths for popular entertainment would be considered abhorrent; he asserts that, in reality, this is the role that humans play when creating wildlife documentaries.
Clare Palmer asserts that even when wildlife documentaries contain vivid images of wild animal suffering, they don't motivate a moral or practical response in the way that companion animals, such as dogs or cats, suffering in similar situations would and most people instinctively adopt the position of ''laissez-faire'': allowing suffering to take its course, without intervention.
The question of whether wildlife documentary filmmakers should intervene to help animals is a topic of much debate. It has been described as a "golden rule" of such filmmaking to observe animals, but not intervene. The rule is occasionally broken, with BBC documentary crews rescuing some stranded baby turtles in 2016 and rescuing a group of penguins trapped in a ravine in 2018;
the latter decision was defended by other wildlife documentary filmmakers.
Filmmakers following the rule have been criticized for filming dying animals, such as an elephant dying of thirst, without helping them.
'', published in 1851, describes the sea as a place of "universal cannibalism", where "creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began"; this is illustrated by a later scene depicting sharks consuming their own entrails.
The fairy tales of
contain depictions of the suffering of animals due to natural processes and their rescues by humans. The titular character in "
. Thumbelina feels sorry for the bird and her companion the mole states: "What a wretched thing it is to be born a little bird. Thank goodness none of my children can be a bird, who has nothing but his 'chirp, chirp', and must starve to death when winter comes along." However, Thumbelina discovers that the swallow isn't actually dead and manages to nurse them back to health. In "
", the bitter winter cold causes the duckling to become frozen in an icy pond; the duckling is rescued by a farmer who breaks the ice and takes the duckling to his home to be resuscitated.
In the 1923 book ''
portrays a world where predation and death are continuous: a sick young hare is killed by crows, a pheasant and a duck are killed by foxes, a mouse is killed by an owl and a squirrel describes how their family members were killed by predators. The
has been criticized for inaccurately portraying a world where predation and death are no longer emphasized, creating a "fantasy of nature cleansed of the traumas and difficulties that may trouble children and that adults prefer to avoid." The film version has also been criticized for unrealistically portraying nature undisturbed by humans as an idyllic place, made up of
s, with Bambi's life undisturbed by many of the harms routinely experienced by his real-life counterparts, such as starvation, predation,
and chronic wasting disease.
'', describes nature as "ruthless, hideous, and cruel beyond belief" and observes that the lives of insects are "sustained only by intricate processes of fantastic horror".
In ''
compares the hardship experienced by animals in winter to the suffering experienced by poor humans, stating: "For birds and animals, as for poor men, winter is another matter. Rabbits, like most wild animals, suffer hardship."
Adams also describes rabbits as being more susceptible to disease in the winter.
golden retriever, observes that humans observe nature from an ecologically aesthetic perspective which disregards the suffering of the individuals who inhabit "healthy" ecosystems; Albert also asserts that it is a taboo in the animal rights movement that the majority of the suffering experienced by animals is due to natural processes and that "
y proposal for remedying this situation is bound to sound utopian, but my dream is that one day the sun will rise on Earth and all sentient creatures will greet the new day with joy."
The character
'', in a speech, tells how he once observed a salmon being consumed alive by a mother otter and her children feeding on the salmon's eggs. He sarcastically describes "
ther and children dining upon mother and children" as one of "nature's wonders", using it as an example of how evil is "built into the very nature of the universe". This depiction of evil has been described as non-traditional because it expresses horror at the idea that evil has been designed as a feature of the universe.
'', employs the simile of a stag who, as a victim, is wounded by a human hunter and is then devoured by jackals, who themselves are frightened away by a scavenging lion. In the
, the poet writes of a swallow feeding a grasshopper to its young, remarking: "wilt not quickly cast it loose? for it is not right nor just that singers should perish by singers' mouths."
wrote of the kindness of giving water to birds and speculated whether there was a future existence where innocent animals would experience happiness to remedy the suffering they experience in this world. In the ''
'', he included a poem addressed to the wolf, who: "if he were conscious of his bloodguiltiness, would rather have remained unborn."
In "On Poetry: A Rhaposdy", written in 1733,
proved that all creatures exist in a state of eternal war and uses predation by different animals as evidence of this: "A Whale of moderate Size will draw / A Shole of Herrings down his Maw. / A Fox with Geese his Belly crams; / A Wolf destroys a thousand Lambs."
", published in 1756, arguing: "Elements, animals, humans, everything is at war". Voltaire also asserts that "all animals
condemned to live, / All sentient things, born by the same stern law, / Suffer like me, and like me also die."
In
laments the cruelty of nature, observing how ravens cry out, but don't receive pity and how sparrows and robins starve to death in the winter. Enion also mourns how wolves and lions reproduce in a state of love, then abandon their young to the wilds and how a spider labours to create a web, awaiting a fly, but then is consumed by a bird.
Erasmus Darwin in ''
'', published posthumously in 1803, observes the struggle for existence, describing how different animals feed upon each other: "The towering eagle, darting from above, / Unfeeling rends the inoffensive dove
Nor spares, enamour'd of his radiant form, / The hungry nightingale the glowing worm" and how parasitic animals, like
, reproduce, their young feeding inside the living bodies of other animals: "Fell Oestrus buries in her rapid course / Her countless brood in stag, or bull, or horse; / Whose hungry larva eats its living way, / Hatch'd by the warmth, and issues into day."
He also refers to the world as "one great Slaughter-house".
In a footnote, he speculates whether humans could someday create a food source for predatory animals based on sugar, asserting that, as a result, "food for animals would then become as plentiful as water, and they might live upon the earth without preying on each other, as thick as blades of grass, with no restraint to their numbers but the want of local room."
, the brother of Lewis Gompertz, in his 1813 poem "To the Thoughtless", criticises the assertion that human consumption of other animals is justified because it is designed that way by nature, inviting the reader to imagine themselves being predated by an animal and to consider whether they would want to have their life saved, in the same way an animal being preyed upon—such as a fly attacked by a spider—would, despite predation being part of nature-given law.
In the 1818 poem "Epistle to John Hamilton Reynolds",
how one evening he was by the ocean, when he saw: "Too far into the sea; where every maw / The greater on the less feeds evermore" and observes that there exists an "eternal fierce destruction" at the core of the world: "The Shark at savage prey — the hawk at pounce, — / The gentle Robin, like a Pard or Ounce, / Ravening a worm". The poem has been cited as an example of Erasmus Darwin's writings on Keats.
In 1850,
", which contained the expression "Nature, red in tooth and claw"; this phrase has since become commonly used as a shorthand to refer to the extent of suffering in nature. In his 1855 poem "
", Tennyson described nature as irredeemable because of the theft and predation it intrinsically contains: "For nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal; / The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow spear'd by the shrike, / And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey."
, describes how originally the prince saw the "peace and plenty" of nature, but upon closer inspection he observed: "Life living upon death. So the fair show / Veiled one vast, savage, grim conspiracy / Of mutual murder, from the worm to man". It has been asserted that the Darwinian struggle depicted in the poem comes more from Arnold than Buddhist tradition.