Culling

This note is about the ethics of culling or lethal removal of wild species.

Reasons:

environmental protection
population and disease control

Negative labels:

pest
nuisance
unwanted
invasive
alien
exotic
introduced
hyperabundant
feral

Dubois, Sara. ‘Ethical Considerations for Controlling Wild Animals’. In The Routledge Handbook of Animal Ethics, edited by Bob Fischer, 407–19. New York: Routledge, 2020.

Lederman, Zohar, Manuel Magalhães-Sant’Ana, and Teck Chuan Voo. ‘Stamping Out Animal Culling: From Anthropocentrism to One Health Ethics’. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 34, no. 5 (2021): 27. https://doi.org/10/gth3zg.

Cats

In Australia there are too many cats across the landscape. Without homeless cats, sterilisation, and confinements the ongoing need to ill will never end creating suffering with little gain.

Peterson, M. Nils, Brett Hartis, Shari Rodriguez, Matthew Green, and Christopher A. Lepczyk. ‘Opinions from the Front Lines of Cat Colony Management Conflict’. PLOS ONE 7, no. 9 (2012): e44616. https://doi.org/10/f3683w.

Minimal Principles

prior evaluation
comparative investigation of alternative measures
involvement of ethical advisors
"clear, explicit consideration of how and why animals are both killed and ‘made killable’ should be a key component of any wildlife management initiative that involves lethal control" 1

Alternatives

conditioned taste aversion
fertility control
gene drive

References

Cassini, Marcelo H. ‘A Review of the Critics of Invasion Biology’. Biological Reviews 95, no. 5 (2020): 1467–78. https://doi.org/10/gth337.

Bocci, Paolo. ‘Tangles of Care: Killing Goats to Save Tortoises on the Galápagos Islands’. Cultural Anthropology 32, no. 3 (2017): 424–49. https://doi.org/10/grjdnh.

Warren, Charles R. ‘Beyond “Native V. Alien”: Critiques of the Native/Alien Paradigm in the Anthropocene, and Their Implications’. Ethics, Policy & Environment 26, no. 2 (2023): 287–317. https://doi.org/10/gprxgp.

Footnotes

Crowley, Sarah L., Steve Hinchliffe, and Robbie A. McDonald. ‘Killing Squirrels: Exploring Motivations and Practices of Lethal Wildlife Management’. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 1, no. 1–2 (2018): 120–43. https://doi.org/10/gth34q.˄