Thoughts Humanitarian Assistance for Wild Animals

Kyle Johannsen argues that most wild animals live bad lives, and we should intervene in nature to improve their wellbeing

When you read the title of this paper, what ergy, and attract the attention of predators, likely comes to mind is images of Koala by singing for prolonged periods of time. bears being rescued from bush fires, or of Being encumbered isn’t good for peacocks, injured raccoons and deer, being rehabili- and exposing themselves to danger isn’t tated after a hurricane. These are examples good for songbirds. Rather, the function of of humanitarian assistance for wild animals, heavy feathers and prolonged singing, is to but they’re not what this paper is primar- protect the birds’ genes by attracting mates. ily about. The need for humanitarian as- Mating, and reproducing, may be enjoy- sistance in the wild far exceeds the damage able for these animals, but surely evolution caused by natural disasters. Severe suffering would have facilitated these goals some oth- is pervasive in nature. It’s built into natural er way if the purpose of evolved traits were processes, and thus it’s the norm rather than to benefit the animals who have them. the exception. Since the purpose of evolution is to protect genes, you’d think that a parent’s evolved traits at least function to benefit Severe suffering is her children. Unfortunately, protecting an pervasive in nature animals’ genes doesn’t always benefit her children either. After all, many animals are r-strategists: they protect their genes Many people think that evolution is an by producing large numbers of offspring. inherently beneficial process: that the traits Some r-strategist parents (such as certain it produces evolved because they benefit the rodents) produce dozens of offspring per animals who have them. This is a miscon- litter or clutch, while others (such as cer- ception, though. Evolution selects traits that tain fish) produce thousands or even mil- protect an animal’s genes, and protecting an lions. Unlike K-strategists, who have few animal’s genes is different from benefitting offspring but devote a lot of energy to each her. provides some good of them, r-strategists play a numbers game. examples in his book River Out of Eden: male Though the majority of their offspring die peacocks are encumbered by heavy feathers; painfully and prematurely, parents produce and male songbirds exert considerable en- enough to ensure that some will survive to

33 Thoughts maturity and successfully reproduce. In oth- and it’s uncertain whether insects are sen- er words, the r-strategy protects a parent’s tient. However, it’s important to keep in genes, but it sacrifices most of her offspring mind that the r-strategy isn’t just common in the process. among insects. It’s common across many It’s worth pausing to think about the species of animal, including animals we r-strategy’s implications for wild animals’ know are sentient, such as mammals (small quality of life. First, it’s clear that most mammals are often r-strategists). Though it r-strategists live bad lives. Their lives are may turn out to be false that most r-strate- typically short, and they typically die from gists are sentient, it remains true that most painful causes such as predation, starvation, sentient individuals born into the world exposure, or dehydration. What’s more, the are r-strategists. This follows from the fact fact that infant r-strategists are at a high risk that sentient r-strategists’ birth rates are so of dying from painful causes suggests that much higher than sentient K-strategists’. their short lives are characterised by hard- Though animals who survive to maturi- ships, e.g., by inadequate access to food, by ty normally live better lives than those who the threat of predators, etc. Only a lucky don’t, it would be hasty to conclude that few eventually learn to manage the dangers their lives are easy. Mature wild animals are of life and become comfortable in their en- subject to hardships far worse than anything vironment. Were the r-strategy very rare most human beings deal with (especially among wild animal species, its implications humans living in wealthy countries). Exam- might not be too dramatic. Unfortunately, ples include disease, parasites, predator-in- it’s prevalent among many species of ani- duced stress, predator-caused injuries, and mal, such as fish, lizards, amphibians, and extreme temperatures. small mammals. There are many K-strate- gist species too, of course, but the fact that r-strategists have far higher birth rates than Most individual wild K-strategists, means that far more individ- ual r-strategists are born into the world animals live bad lives than individual K-strategists. Given how numerous r-strategists are, ethicists such Since wild animals are so numerous, and as , , Eze Paez, and live such difficult lives, the scale of wild an- Brian Tomasik conclude that the amount imal suffering is far higher than anything of suffering in nature probably exceeds the we’re used to. Consider two well-known, amount of enjoyment in it. They may or large-scale problems: global poverty and may not be right about that, but at the very factory farming. According to The World least we can say that most individual wild Bank, 689 million human beings were liv- animals live bad lives. ing on less than $1.90 per day in 2017. And It might be objected that most r-strate- according to a recent estimate in Christo- gists aren’t sentient: that they’re incapable pher Schlottmann’s and ’s Food, of having experiences such as pleasure or Animals, and the Environment, 70 billion pain. Indeed, many r-strategists are insects, terrestrial animals are killed every year

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(mostly in factory farms). As large as these vores, or r-strategists into K-strategists. numbers are, though, wild animals are far Though I think ecosystems populated by more numerous. For example, the number K-strategist herbivores would be far better of sentient r-strategist infants who perish for wild animals than our current ecosys- over, say, a 5-year period, may very well be tems are, we should only bring such eco- somewhere in the quadrillions (or higher). systems about if, and when, it’s feasible and Despite its scale, safe to do so. Furthermore, it may turn out is also neglected. Relative to global pov- that it often isn’t, and never could be, feasi- erty and factory farming, very few people ble or safe to bring them about. Put another are working on ways to assist wild animals. way, ecosystems populated by K-strategist As a result, wild animal suffering presents herbivores are ideal for animals, but at the a tremendous opportunity for philanthro- present moment, it’s hard to say whether py. Effective interventions would do a tre- that ideal could one day be achieved. mendous amount of good, and the fact that relatively few people are working on the problem suggests that many potential inter- Very few people are ventions are still waiting to be discovered. Thankfully, some organisations are current- working on ways to ly working on wild animal suffering, e.g., assist wild animals Animal Ethics, Wild Animal Initiative, and Rethink Priorities. You may be surprised to learn that some One promising type of large-scale inter- beneficial interventions are already being vention, is to give wild animals a “genetic performed on a regular basis. It’s standard painkiller”. In other words, we could use in many countries to vaccinate wild animal gene-editing to reduce the extent to which populations against diseases that threaten animals’ pain bothers them (much the way either domesticated animals or human be- we use medication to dull our own pain). ings, e.g., . These aren’t This might sound like science fiction, but provided for wild animals’ sake, but they do it isn’t. Gene-editing has already been used foreseeably benefit the wild animals who to produce mice who have a dulled capacity receive them. One straightforward possi- for pain, and the Sculpting Evolution group bility, then, is to just increase the number at the MIT Media Lab is currently work- of wild animal programs, and to ing to produce more. What’s more, current vaccinate wild animals against diseases even gene-editing technology is capable of driv- when those diseases don’t threaten us. ing traits through populations, i.e., it can be Restricting ourselves to familiar, rela- used to ensure that when an edited animal tively small-scale (but still important) in- mates with a wild animal, nearly all of the ed- terventions isn’t very satisfying, though. ited animal’s offspring will inherit the engi- Perhaps we should go further? We could, neered trait, that nearly all of her offspring’s for example, research genetic interventions offspring will inherit the engineered trait, intended to change carnivores into herbi- etc. Though it would be foolish to com-

35 Thoughts pletely deprive animals of their capacity for fits, and good reason to believe that it’s safe, pain, a genetic painkiller wouldn’t do that. then we have good reason to implement it. It would just reduce the extent to which A second objection is that intervening in an animal’s pain bothers her, thus leaving nature is too paternalistic, i.e., that trying intact her ability to avoid harmful stimuli. to help wild animals requires unjustified, Nor would it be necessary to permanently coercive interference with their lives. I have dull animals’ capacity for pain. We could a couple of points to make in reply. First, presumably limit the period of time during many interventions do not interfere with which an animal’s capacity is affected, e.g., wild animals’ liberties. For example, using we could relieve r-strategist infants’ pain feeding stations to vaccinate wild animals during the period of time they’re most like- does not involve any coercion at all. Since ly to die a painful death, after which their paternalistic interventions are, by defini- full capacity for pain would return (much tion, coercive, interventions that don’t use the way pain-killing medication works). coercion can’t be paternalistic. Interventions like this shouldn’t take long to develop, since we’ve already managed to create a genetic painkiller for mice, and So, what should we implementing them shouldn’t have a sig- nificant impact on animals’ population sizes do right now? or on the way ecosystems function. What they would significantly impact, though, is Gene-editing, by contrast, does involve wild animals’ wellbeing. Since the benefits some coercion: it requires infringing the promise to be astronomically large, and liberties of animals who are used in exper- the harms quite small, the main challenge iments. However, the animals who stand to is mustering the political will needed to de- benefit from these experiments do not have velop, and administer, genetic painkillers to to be coerced in any way. Engineered traits wild animals. are passed on to future animals by releas- It might be objected that intervening ing edited animals into the wild. Neither in nature reduces its naturalness, and that the wild animals who mate with them, nor naturalness ought to be preserved. Howev- the generations of offspring that follow, are er, I don’t think it’s plausible to claim that coerced. However, even if it was true that naturalness has any value independent of such interventions are, in some sense, pater- animals’, and humans’, wellbeing. When nalistic, it isn’t clear that this is a problem. interfering with nature improves our own Paternalistic interference is only inappro- wellbeing, we don’t hesitate to do it, e.g., priate when a being is competent to man- we protect ourselves from bad weather, cure age the dangers she’s being protected from. ourselves of diseases, etc. And though inter- Since most wild animals die during infancy vening in nature carries certain risks, the from the various dangers they’re exposed right response is to proceed with caution. to, it’s false that they competently manage If we have good reason to believe that an those dangers. Though it’s true that certain intervention will provide significant bene- wild animal species are competent (those that

36 Humanitarian Assistance for Wild Animals manage to stave off extinction), the vast ma- So, what should we do right now? What jority of wild animal individuals are not, and are the implications of wild animal suffer- never become, competent. ing for animal activism? Though it might be A third objection is that some interven- tempting to advocate for genetic editing, I tions, namely those involving gene-editing, think it’s best to hold off for now. Philoso- require that we first perform unjustified ex- phers and animal studies scholars are some- periments on animals. Genetic experiments times willing to entertain the idea that we require that we restrict animals’ liberties, should genetically edit wild animal popula- they’re often painful, and they can have tions, but I don’t think the general public unintended consequences that negative- will take such proposals seriously (yet). A ly impact edited animals’ health. Though better strategy is to focus on raising aware- these are significant harms, a few things ness about the full extent of wild animal about them should be kept in mind. First, suffering, and on investigating and building some interventions shouldn’t require much support for comparatively modest interven- testing to develop. As I mentioned above, tions, such as wild animal vaccination pro- we’ve already managed to create a genet- grams. Once there’s sufficient awareness ic painkiller for mice, so we won’t need to about wild animal suffering, and sufficient start from scratch when developing similar support for a range of modest interventions, painkillers for use in the wild. Second, the building support for more ambitious initia- harms of genetic experimentation, though tives will be easier. In addition, traditional significant, only affect a small portion of the animal activism has a helpful role to play, targeted populations. As I mentioned above, e.g., advocating for veganism and for the engineered traits are driven through popu- view that animals matter just as much as we lations when edited animals reproduce with do. People who see animals as our moral wild animals. The generations of offspring equals, and who’ve gone vegan out of re- who inherit the engineered traits would spect for animals’ moral importance, are far never see the inside of a laboratory, and more likely to care about wild animal suf- they would vastly outnumber the animals fering when made aware of it. Moral prog- experimented upon. Though we should be ress can be slow, so there’s no time like the reluctant to benefit some when we must present to start. harm others in the process, we should also make exceptions when the stakes are high enough. Since the benefits of administering genetic painkillers to r-strategists would be astronomically high, the harms of experi- mentation are justified. That said, it might Kyle Johannsen is adjunct assistant professor at be best to wait until there’s sufficient pub- Queen’s University and author of Wild Animal lic support. It would be wrong to perform Ethics: The Moral and Political Problem of experiments unless we have good reason to Wild Animal Suffering (New York: Rout- believe that the interventions under devel- ledge, 2021). He’s does work in political philos- opment will actually be implemented. ophy, and in animal and environmental ethics.

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