https://open.substack.com/pub/placeholderatthemoment/p/conservation-as-compassion-a-101?r=341b6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

This is posted in other communities.

We found a bay in our house last night.

I was adamant that we not kill it, but that we catch it to get it tested for rabies - just to be safe.

I didn’t know that they have to kill the bat to do the testing. They won’t let me bring him in until Monday, so they advised I “let him die” in the box. I’m heartbroken for the poor, terrified life that is currently alone in a box in my bathroom. If he has to die, I would prefer it be in kindness and not alone… I know it’s silly… but no living thing deserves to be treated with such malice. It didn’t know, it was just being a bat.

What is the best way to give him a softer, kinder exit from this world, so he doesn’t have to suffer over the weekend, just to die on a table in an office somewhere…

Advice needed! I’m about to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and I’m having a bit of a moral dilemma about the kinds of jobs that I could pursue with my degree. When I first settled on this major I was already an ethical vegan but had not yet considered how much animals suffer in the wild. I was initially planning on pursuing a job for the NPS or some other land management agency, but as I stumbled upon literature related to wild animal suffering I realized that nature is truly dominated by suffering. The more I think about this, the more I feel like my ethics cannot be reconciled with conservation oriented employment. There are some non-conservation jobs available with my degree such as environmental consulting jobs but I still feel like most of these positions promote a similarly speciesist view of environmental issues. At this point in my college experience, I am very close to graduating and there is a lot of familial pressure on me to do so and to get a job related to my major, so changing majors doesn’t feel like a good option for me (and my family doesn’t seem to understand this moral crisis). I’m aware that society at large is by default speciesist and that I have to accept that finding completely ethical employment is thus probably unrealistic, but I just don’t think I can move past this. I had briefly considered pursuing a career studying ecology with the hope that I could persuade some within the field to abandon their idyllic view of nature and to apply suffering focused ethics to the discipline. Realistically though I think it is more likely that I would not be influential as an academic, and I do not think it is work I would enjoy (though I would still pursue it if I thought it would be most effective). Also, I find it very distressing to constantly think about how nature works; if there is a way I could help financially while simultaneously being able to mentally block out that suffering I would prefer that. I think I will most likely go to grad school for another discipline but there is financial pressure on me from my father to work in my field before going to grad school which is sort of where my current ethical dilemma comes from. The only other marketable skill I have is that I know how to drive a semi which I hate doing, doesn’t pay well, and which may also have some ethical considerations. I know a little bit of R so I think I might pursue that further in grad school and maybe find a job in data analysis. Any suggestions about something I should do with my degree or a decent paying field that I could enter relatively quickly would be greatly appreciated.

https://placeholderatthemoment.substack.com/p/wildlife-services-blackbirds-and?utm_source=%2Finbox&utm_medium=reader2

Contraception-Wild-Animals.pdf (animal-ethics.org)

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I hope this post isn't off-topic, but I hope it sparks some of you to take action. As a devoted animal lover, I always strive to minimize suffering in my daily choices. But I recently made a tragic mistake that still haunts me. I'm sharing my story so hopefully you can prevent it from ever happening to you.

Last winter, after a series of huge rainstorms, my gutters overflowed into an unused rain barrel against my house wall that was supposed to be empty. The barrel's poorly-designed lid kept falling off and I could not get it secured. The barrel didn't have an outlet at the bottom, and I didn't want to tip it over to empty it, because I was pretty sure a small mammal had made a nest behind it. I supposed I should drain the barrel using a siphon, but I didn't get around to it. Then one day I glanced in the barrel and found a drowned roof rat floating on top. My worst fears had come true.

It was completely preventable. Even if I had disturbed a nest by moving the barrel, that would have been infinitely better than what ended up happening due to my inaction. Compounding the tragedy, when I finally drained the barrel that day (by drilling holes in the bottom), I found another drowned rat at the bottom. These two creatures had perished, terribly, from my negligence. I buried the two little rats, a male and a female, side by side in my garden and sprinkled camellia petals on top.

Now, I try to check my yard regularly, especially after a storm, and I remove or flip over anything that could be a drowning or trapping hazard. This even includes something as small as a glass bottle or a watering can; small creatures such as insects or lizards can get trapped and die in these. Even worse hazards are planters, barrels, wheelbarrows, boats*, decorative ponds, and swimming pools. The latter two should always have wildlife escape ramps installed (you can make your own or buy them).

Animals are especially vulnerable when it's cold and wet (so they are seeking shelter) or hot and dry (so they are seeking water). Please remember to keep your yard wildlife-safe at all times of year!

* A family member near a lake recently found a drowned duckling in a right-side-up beached canoe that had filled with rainwater. Boats can be dangerous even on shore.

I have read many arguments from nature, evolution, ecosystem, we dont know enough about biology to making animals dependent on humans, misuse of power by humans to morality is subjective.

But one thing I dont understand is how can we justify the physical pain and emotional torture that is felt by the animals? Let's go to the change and put your hand in the flame. How many seconds did it take before you pulled yourself back? Physical pain is not fiction. If you see a cancer patient, you would realize what pain is and that it can happen to anyone of us but we stay oblivious to it until it actually happens.

There are many instances when humans have experienced extreme and crazy pain. And once you've seen that, how do you turn around and say that wild animals pain is justified? Pain is pain, regardless of the predators hunger or natural selection. Why do we have so many pain killers in the market? Why do people smoke cannabis to deal with their pain? Why is this privilege limited to humans only?

I agree that I dont know much about ecology and dont know what is the practical way to deal with this problem. But this does not mean that I will deny the pain and suffering of animals even if it is not in my control.

I feel like a coward more than scientific thinker because I am afraid of the consequences of tampering with nature. And honestly I dont want to leave my house to go solve problems in the jungle. But I will not say that Nature knows best to cope with my negative feelings.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-ai-can-help-save-endangered-species/

First of all, I don't mean this post as a straw man argument against the entire idea of reducing wild animal suffering. From browsing the sub there are topics about reducing lights, noise, invasive species, anyone can get behind these ideas.

There's also the solid point of the wild life vegan blindspot.

Also by asking this question I don't aim to expose some contradiction, to score a win. Maybe the answer is to my question is simply "yes, it does" and that's it.

I'm actually curious because the idea of ending wild animal suffering challenges preconceptions.

For one I've always cared about animal welfare and I've also always been aware that life in the wild can be vicious. I just never thought of doing something about it.

However when I see the ultimate endpoint I'm not sure it's something I personally would pursue, support.

So anyway, let's imagine a pilot program to reduce wild animal suffering in a particular area.

First challenge are predators, parasites and parasitoids.

We can keep predators isolated and possibly most of them fed through a carefully designed plant based diet. Possibly, I'm only guessing here. I'm guessing the protein and nutrient needs of most vertebrate animals aren't very different, if we can keep a human alive on a vegan diet maybe we can any mammal, possibly even other classes in the Vertebrate subphylum.

Main issue maybe would be if the animal can properly digest the nutrients from a plant based diet while being an obligate carnivore.

Assuming we can keep them isolated and fed in welfare or at least greater welfare than without any intervention (maybe not so easy to measure), we'd also have to manage population size.

It is at this point that I ask "why bother?". Why bother keeping a species alive indefinitely? There are good answers for that question, but looking at it strictly from the perspective of reducing suffering, why not neuter them all and let them live out the rest of their lives in peace?

Then we come to parasites, parasitoids. For these animals it'd be much harder to keep their existence without suffering, specially the ones that use other life forms as part of their reproductive cycle. For these there seems to be no alternative but extermination.

Then we move on to vertebrate herbivores. Not a lot of them are strict herbivores and it might be difficult to keep them that way when we consider how hard it is to control insect life. But perfect is the enemy of good and let's say we roll with that. Ignore all but the most destructive of Ecdysozoa and let them go about their business.

Once again we have the problem of maintaining population size, and once again we land at the question of "why bother?".

By this point our pilot program has completely reworked its target area to the point where it's a zoo, not sure if this is the right word. Let's say an animal-centered zoo. Not quite a natural reserve because these tend to look at an ecosystem as a whole rather than any specific species.

So from my point of view, and it might be a limited uninformed point of view, but the ultimate question we keep circling back to is "why bother?". Why not just let the animals all die out in peace? What is the difference between 10 happy wolves and 100 happy wolves? What's the difference between 10 ants living in peace and 10 wolves living in peace?

One answer to the question of "why bother" goes through the path of considering ecosystems themselves as something worth preserving, much like we might want to preserve a culture or a language. But maybe there are other answers.

For me the question ultimately becomes, is there more to life than pain and pleasure? Which we can apply to ourselves as well, after all allowing humanity to die out in peace definitely ends human suffering.

final musing and a provocation: being blindly utilitarian and following to the ultimate end the principle that yes, no life is better than life, then doesn't that place every asshole hunter posing with a lion carcass as someone who unintentionally increased net happiness?

In the chain of species extinctions, AI can predict the next link to break (mongabay.com)

It's weird to me, as such barbarism should be unacceptable to any sane individual.

https://timelines.issarice.com/wiki/Timeline_of_wild-animal_suffering

Anyone noticed this? Like when someone feeds their cat a vegan diet people scream animal cruelty and how cats need meat etc. But they totally ignore the horrific cruelty that many other animals went through to become nonvegan food, I've never seen anyone give a good reason for why many animals should be sacrificed to feed one.

We can also see this in hunting, when some hunter or poacher shoots a carnivorous animal people tend to get more upset at that as opposed to shooting a herbivorous one.