Dire Wolf De-Extinction and Animal Welfare

Human activities and climate change have contributed to a dramatic decline in populations and species, and conservation activities are required to slow this decline. Conservation of nature is considered worthwhile by many, but for different reasons. This means that ideas about our moral obligations to protect nature, including our obligations to individual wild animals, vary. Because of this, no simple environmental ethic is likely to be adequate to guide practical decision making in conservation, particularly in situations where the protection of ecological wholes (e.g. species) impacts negatively on individual animals. Here, a practical 'ethical' approach is suggested that accommodates both the desire to conserve nature and concerns about the welfare of individual wild animals. According to this approach, our main obligation is to those sentient wild animals in whose lives we have interfered. In undertaking conservation activities that may harm individual wild animals, we are obliged to maximize the benefits of those activities and minimize any negative welfare impacts. This can be done by evaluating the relative impacts of various existing methods, choosing the most humane method, applying it in the best possible way and continuing to research more humane alternatives. This approach is illustrated by the case of the lethal control of possums in New Zealand using toxic agents. The general advantages and limitations of this 'compassionate' approach to conservation are discussed. With the continuing 'shrinking of the wild', consideration of animal welfare will become increasingly important, not only to justify conservation activities but also for achieving conservation goals.

Editorial: Wildlife Welfare

Sustainability is a broad and multi-layered concept that is not easy to define. In the practice of food production this becomes clear in a wide range of – sometimes mutually excluding – proposals to secure food production in a sustainable way. Currently there are a number of initiatives to make food production more sustainable. Animal welfare increasingly plays a role in the initiatives to come to a sustainable food production and consumption. However, in spite of the growing attention to animal welfare in sustainability debates, animal welfare quite often appears to conflict with the ideas on sustainability. On the one hand, problems occur as a result of the need to weigh different aspects of sustainability. These are questions, such as how to weigh the added value of giving animals the opportunity of free ranging against the related animal and public health risks. On the other hand, a recent proposal to make poultry meat production more sustainable shows an additional problem in the relation between animal welfare and sustainability. This is the potential conflict between the emphasis on the individual animal in the welfare debate and the orientation on collectives in the sustainability concept. An improvement of overall sustainability might still imply that the welfare problems of individual animals remain unaddressed. In this paper, I elaborate on the relation between animal welfare and sustainability. I use the debate between environmental and animal ethics – that is characterised by a similar gap – in order to look at the opportunities to deal with the tensions between individual animal welfare and the collective focus of sustainability. Finally, I propose that defining sustainability as a moral ideal is helpful to include individual animal welfare in the sustainability debate.

The concept of the 3Rs (replacement, reduction, and refinement) was originally developed for improving laboratory animal welfare and is well known in biomedical and toxicologic research. The 3Rs have so far gained little attention in wildlife research, and there could be several reasons for this. First, researchers may prioritize the welfare of populations and ecosystems over the welfare of individual animals. The effects of research on individual animals can, however, impact welfare and research quality at group and population levels. Second, researchers may find it difficult to apply the 3Rs to studies of free-living wildlife because of the differences between laboratory and wild animals, species, research environment, and purpose and design of the studies. There are, however, several areas where it is possible to transfer the 3R principles to wildlife research, including replacement with noninvasive research techniques, reduction with optimized experimental design, and refinement with better methods of capture, anesthesia, and handling. Third, researchers may not have been trained in applying the 3Rs in wildlife research. This training is needed since ethics committees, employers, journal publishers, and funding agencies increasingly require researchers to consider the welfare implications of their research. In this paper, we compare the principles of the 3Rs in various research areas to better understand the possibilities and challenges of the 3Rs in wildlife research. We emphasize the importance of applying the 3Rs systematically throughout the research process. Based on experiences from laboratory research, we suggest three key factors to enhance implementation of the 3Rs in wildlife research: 1) organizational structure and management, 2) 3R awareness, and 3) research innovation, validation, and implementation. Finally, we encourage an interdisciplinary approach to incorporate the 3R principles in wildlife research. For improved animal welfare and increased research quality, researchers have moral obligations to include the 3Rs into all research areas, including wildlife research.

Hutchins and his coauthors argue that a strong commitment to wildlife conservation and animal welfare provide powerful ethical justifications for accredited zoos and aquariums. They note that zoo animals play an increasingly important role as ambassadors for their species in securing a future for wildlife and their habitats. They note the strong financial contribution of zoos to conservation efforts and have been effective at increasing quality of life for captive animals through exhibit design, scientifically based animal programs, and policy. They argue that the benefits of exhibiting animals in zoos are greater than the costs in individual animal welfare.

Simple SummarySick cattle and sheep are often treated by farmers without prior veterinary examination and, as a consequence, incorrect diagnoses and inappropriate therapies are common, but these failings largely go undetected and unreported. Many farmers maintain that market forces render veterinary care of individual sick sheep and cattle too expensive. Delays in requesting veterinary attention are not uncommon causing unnecessary animal suffering and a poorer outcome. Incidence rates of endemic diseases in the United Kingdom are too high, causing animal welfare concerns, but these could be reduced by the implementation of proven veterinary flock/herd health programmes.The Cattle Health and Welfare Group of Great Britain report (CHAWG; 2012) lists the most important cattle diseases and disorders but fails to fully acknowledge the importance of animal mental health and; in so doing; misses the opportunity to further promote animal welfare. There are effective prevention regimens; including vaccination; husbandry and management strategies for all ten listed animal health concerns in the CHAWG report; however control measures are infrequently implemented because of perceived costs and unwillingness of many farmers to commit adequate time and resources to basic farm management tasks such as biosecurity; and biocontainment. Reducing disease prevalence rates by active veterinary herd and flock health planning; and veterinary care of many individual animal problems presently “treated” by farmers; would greatly improve animal welfare. Published studies have highlighted that treatments for lame sheep are not implemented early enough with many farmers delaying treatment for weeks; and sometimes even months; which adversely affects prognosis. Disease and welfare concerns as a consequence of sheep ectoparasites could be greatly reduced if farmers applied proven control strategies detailed in either veterinary flock health plans or advice available from expert veterinary websites. Recent studies have concluded that there is also an urgent need for veterinarians to better manage pain in livestock. Where proven treatments are available; such as blockage of pain arising from ovine obstetrical problems by combined low extradural injection of lignocaine and xylazine; these are seldom requested by farmers because the technique is a veterinary procedure and incurs a professional fee which highlights many farmers’ focus on economics rather than individual animal welfare.

T. J. Kasperbauer presents an analysis of the ethics of de-extinction that is fairly distinctive in its focus on the welfare of individual animals. But while he is right to express concerns about individual animal well-being, individualism may not be the most important lens through which to view this issue. If one examines more closely what is at issue in de-extinction technologies in relation to species, additional problems appear that cast doubt both on the legitimacy of de-extinction projects, and on the limited defense of them that Kasperbauer offers.

The processes used to manage sheep in the broadest sense and the way these are perceived by the sheep will have a critical impact on the welfare of individual animals. While these impacts may be difficult to assess and more difficult to quantify, it is clear that the skilled stockperson has the ability to reduce the impact of some of the negative experiences that potentially aversive procedures – individual handling or transportation for example – may engender. There are additional challenges both to evaluate the perception of animals of long-term or chronic challenges in comparison with short-term, acute events and to reconcile the welfare of individuals with that of the flock as a whole. The importance of the human-animal relationship as a defined component of stockmanship is being more widely recognised. Selection and training of stockpersons will become increasingly important, yet identification and assessment of the complete range of desirable characteristics may not be easy. Mechanisms to reward those responsible for livestock – drivers of livestock vehicles for example – on the basis of animal welfare outcomes rather than work efficiency goals should be encouraged. Different management systems may expose sheep to different amounts of human contact. Where such contact is limited the reactivity of sheep to individual management procedures may be greater. Selection of breeds, or individuals within breeds, which are more tolerant of a reduced level of handling may be one way to deliver welfare benefits in the future, since it is hard to envisage an alternative situation where adequate adaptive experiences which modulate the sheep’s reactivity could be provided under practical farming conditions. As the needs of sheep become better understood there is greater opportunity to fit the system to the animals. There are specific management situations where considerable research effort has delivered the potential to improve welfare – transport for example – and where legislation has been enacted to enforce higher standards. There are also a number of situations (castration for example) where a review of what is considered a routine activity, based on a cost: benefit assessment, may be valuable. Current moves towards more extensive or ranched management systems reinforce the need to ensure that well-adapted breeds are selected which are appropriate to the environment and that stockpersons have the skills needed to work with the sheep under these conditions and keep welfare considerations in the forefront of their mind.

Research in ecology and wildlife biology remains crucial for increasing our knowledge and improving species management and conservation in the midst of the current biodiversity crisis. However, obtaining information on population status often involves invasive sampling of a certain number of individual animals. Marking and sampling practices include taking blood and tissue samples, toe-clipping of amphibians and rodents, or using implants and radio-transmitters – techniques that can negatively affect the animal. Wildlife research may then result in a fundamental conflict between individual animal welfare and the welfare of the population or ecosystem, which could be significantly reduced if non-invasive research practices were more broadly implemented. Implementation of non-invasive methods could be guided by the so-called 3Rs principles for animal research (replace, reduce, refine), which were proposed by Russell and Burch 60 years ago and have become a part of many animal protection legislations worldwide. However, the process of incorporating the 3Rs principles into wildlife research has been unfortunately rather slow and their importance overlooked. In order to help alleviate this situation, here I provide an overview of the most common practices in wildlife research, discuss their potential impact on animal welfare, and present available non-invasive alternatives.

The focus of wildlife rehabilitation is the survival of the individual animal, often leading to rehabilitators being in conflict with government wildlife officials, who regulate the industry and whose focus is on the security of entire wildlife communities. In South Africa, wildlife rehabilitation has been the focus of recent attention from the general public, government and academics, due mostly to the development and adoption of norms and standards for the management of primates. Our study was initiated to provide the first survey of rehabilitation centres in South Africa. Questionnaires were returned by 65% known rehabilitation centres in South Africa, including all nine Provinces, through which several thousand injured, diseased and orphaned animals pass each year. It is clear there is a need for rehabilitation centres in South Africa. However, due to a lack of scientific research on the efficacy of rehabilitation methods for care and release, and minimal post-release monitoring, wildlife rehabilitation techniques and protocols have been based on work experience and subjective intuition. In conjunction with a lack of funds, there may be negative impacts on individual animal welfare and survival, as well as on conservation efforts for wildlife communities. Similar issues have been documented in other regions of the world. In the authors’ opinion, centralisation of wildlife rehabilitation to national or provincial government is a necessity. Furthermore, it is suggested that guidelines of minimum standards should be developed in consultation with experienced rehabilitators, veterinarians and conservation scientists; to be enforced by trained and dedicated conservation officials.

This chapter examines the complexities of assessing the merits and drawbacks of wildlife rehabilitation. Wildlife rehabilitation is often costly, and the resulting benefits differ depending on whether one’s interest is in the welfare of individual animals or conserving populations. Two examples of this dilemma include the rehabilitation of oiled sea otters following the Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska, and the rehabilitation of stranded sea otter pups in central California. In the first example, substantial financial investment resulted in little or no benefits for population conservation. In the second example, the potential for population-level benefits is context dependent: in populations near carrying capacity the conservation impacts are negligible, whereas in isolated, low-density populations rehabilitation and release can be an effective conservation tool. Wildlife rehabilitation is valued by people for various reasons, but recognizing and acknowledging the difference between individual and population welfare is an important step toward effective wildlife conservation.

Increasingly, domesticated herbivores, typically horses or cattle, are used in European rewilding projects to help restore missing or dysfunctional ecological processes. Although these animals’ movements are constrained by fencing, the goal is, as far as possible, to reduce human intervention and to let the animals fend for themselves. Rewilding projects of this sort have generated significant controversy. Notably, critics of such projects claim that nature conservation comes with (too) high a price in terms of compromised animal welfare, while defenders either claim that benefits to the animals themselves outweigh the costs they also face, or that environmental benefits outweigh the costs to the animals. Based on a survey of public media we identify four different animal welfare issues prominent in the very polarised Danish debate: (1) general conception of animal welfare (absence of suffering vs natural living); (2) welfare assessment level (group vs individual animal welfare); (3) feeding (supplementary feeding vs no feeding regime); (4) death (natural death vs lethal or non-lethal removal). We argue that there is potential for common ground if good welfare is interpreted to include not only absence of suffering and other negative experiences but also animals’ autonomy and natural living. However, reactive management interventions should be put in place where severe welfare compromise would otherwise occur.

Increasingly, human activities, including those aimed at conserving species and ecosystems (conservation activities) influence not only the survival and fitness but also the welfare of wild animals. Animal welfare relates to how an animal is experiencing its life and encompasses both its physical and mental states. While conservation biology and animal welfare science are both multi-disciplinary fields that use scientific methods to address concerns about animals, their focus and objectives sometimes appear to conflict. However, activities impacting detrimentally on the welfare of individual animals also hamper achievement of some conservation goals, and societal acceptance is imperative to the continuation of conservation activities. Thus, the best outcomes for both disciplines will be achieved through collaboration and knowledge-sharing. Despite this recognition, cross-disciplinary information-sharing and collaborative research and practice in conservation are still rare, with the exception of the zoo context. This paper summarizes key points developed by a group of conservation and animal welfare scientists discussing scientific assessment of wild animal welfare and barriers to progress. The dominant theme emerging was the need for a common language to facilitate cross-disciplinary progress in understanding and safeguarding the welfare of animals of wild species. Current conceptions of welfare implicit in conservation science, based mainly on “fitness” (physical states), need to be aligned with contemporary animal welfare science concepts which emphasize the dynamic integration of “fitness” and “feelings” (mental experiences) to holistically understand animals' welfare states. The way in which animal welfare is characterized influences the way it is evaluated and the emphasis put on different features of welfare, as well as, the importance placed on the outcomes of such evaluations and how that information is used, for example in policy development and decision-making. Salient examples from the New Zealand and Australian context are presented to illustrate. To genuinely progress our understanding and evaluation of wild animal welfare and optimize the aims of both scientific disciplines, conservation and animal welfare scientists should work together to evolve and apply a common understanding of welfare. To facilitate this, we propose the formal development of a new discipline, Conservation Welfare, integrating the expertise of scientists from both fields.

Play is an important indicator of physical strength, cognitive functioning, and overall welfare for animals. Performed independently or cooperatively, play provides animals, including humans, opportunities to test and practice various physical abilities, social interactions, and object investigations. One area that is often overlooked in animal play is the presence and nature of games. Sometimes considered the social glue of human cultures, games enable participants to practice different moves, cooperatively follow a shared set of rules, and have ‘fun.’ Using archived footage collected from a stable beluga population in managed care for nearly 15 years, we examined spontaneous, untrained social interactions (i.e. games played) between two or more belugas. Social games encompassed repeated, role exchanges that involved a set of rules developed and shared between the interactants. The belugas engaged in seven different games: locomotor-based games with and without contact, triadic play involving inanimate objects and water, and socio-sexual play. Although most social games involved immature animals, some games did occur with adults. This catalog and description of the variety of games played by belugas will enable us to understand the role social behavior has in behavioral development and individual animal welfare.

In 2016, the South African Constitutional Court recognised that the guaranteed human right to the environment, as contained in the Constitution, includes animal welfare. In its judgment, the court stated that the suffering of individual animals is correctly linked to conservation and that this “illustrates the extent to which showing respect and concern for individual animals reinforces broader environmental protections. Animal welfare and animal conservation together reflect two intertwined values”. Although the effect of the statement by the highest court in the land is yet to be fully realised, the court unambiguously demonstrated in its ruling the clear link between human rights and animal interests. These interests are not only to be interpreted in the broad sense relating to species-conservation, but rather the interests and welfare of individual animals. Building on from this approach and the rationale provided by the court, this Paper looks to explore more broadly the interaction and linkages between human and animal rights and interests. More particularly, it attempts to illustrate how these concepts may reinforce and enrich one another and how this relationship may be better reflected in law and policy. It will argue that sophisticated democracies and movements require an integrational approach. By expanding the scope and interpretation of certain human rights to include animal interests; and through coordinated, targeted efforts – we ensure notion of justice is achieved, for all who require it.