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Wild Animal Suffering and Intervention in Nature
Catia Faria
Published online:

18 January 2023

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22 December 2022
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Animals, like humans, suffer and die from natural causes. This is particularly true of animals living in the wild, given their high exposure to, and low capacity to cope with, harmful natural processes. Most wild animals likely have short lives, full of suffering, usually ending in terrible deaths. This book argues that on the assumption that we have reasons to assist others in need, we should intervene in nature to prevent or reduce the harms wild animals suffer, provided that it is feasible and that the expected result is positive overall. It is of the utmost importance that academics from different disciplines as well as animal advocates begin to confront this issue. The more people are concerned with wild animal suffering, the more probable it is that safe and effective solutions to the plight of wild animals will be implemented in the future.

Chapter 3 - Wild Animal Suffering
Catia Faria, Complutense University of Madrid
Book:

Animal Ethics in the Wild

Published online:

18 January 2023

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22 December 2022, pp 60-87
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Summary

This chapter defends the claim that suffering is likely prevalent in wild animals’ lives. It does so by describing the different ways in which the interests of wild animals are systematically frustrated by natural events. These include the wasteful reproductive strategy favored by the majority of wild animals and the enormous variety of natural threats to their health, as well as physical and psychological integrity. It ends by presenting a minimal case for intervention in nature. On the assumption that (i) we ought to aim at preventing or reducing the harms suffered by other individuals whenever it is in our power to do so, if (ii) all sentient individuals, including nonhuman animals, are fully morally considerable and (iii) suffering likely prevails in nature, then (iv) we have reasons to intervene in nature so as to alleviate wild animal suffering as much as possible.

Human dominion and wild animal suffering
Dustin Crummett
Journal:

Religious Studies / Volume 58 / Issue 4 / December 2022

Published online by Cambridge University Press:

11 November 2021, pp. 814-830

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December 2022
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It may be possible, now or in the future, for humans to technologically intervene to reduce the amount of suffering experienced by wild animals. There is a debate about whether, if humans can do this, they should. Here, I consider the implications for this debate of the theological claim that humans have been granted dominion over the other animals. I argue that it's more plausible to interpret the dominion claim as granting humans (i) the responsibility to care for the well-being of individual animals than to interpret it as giving humans either (ii) the right to do whatever they want to other animals or (iii) the responsibility to care only for the well-being of aggregates of animals (such as whole species). I then show how this understanding of dominion undermines a range of arguments against intervening to reduce wild animal suffering. These arguments claim that humans do not stand in the right sort of relationship for intervention to be obligatory (or perhaps even permissible). But if we possess such dominion, we do stand in the right sort of relationship for it to be obligatory.