Rethinking Wildlife Tourism and Conservation during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Animal Ethics Perspective

Abstract

This paper examines how different animal ethics—utilitarianism, animal rights, ecofeminism, and ecocentrism—may justify, improve or thwart animals’ welfare in different wildlife tourism situations in the context of COVID-19. First, we question the limitation of utilitarianism in terms of its failure to weigh human and animal suffering equally. Instead, ecofeminism and its emotional ethics of empathy and care help develop people’s moral reflexivity in rescuing animals during pandemics. Second, we highlight the tensions of ecocentrism and animal rights ethics in non-captive wildlife tourism: the former overlooks the complex ramifications of tourist behaviors, while the latter absolutizes the autonomy of wild animals in the Anthropocene. Overall, researchers need to be cautious of the spatial-temporal conditions in which animal ethics is deployed and translated in conservation practice and policy.