Wild animal suffering

A juvenile Red-tailed Hawk eating a California vole

Wild-animal suffering is the suffering experienced by nonhuman animals in nature. Wild-animal suffering has historically been discussed in the context of philosophy of religion as an instance of the problem of evil.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5] More recently, a number of academics^[6] have considered the suspected scope of the problem from a secular standpoint as a general moral issue, one that humans might be able to take action towards preventing.^[5]^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11] There is considerable disagreement around this latter point, as many believe that human intervention in nature would be either unethical, unfeasible, or both.

Extent of suffering in nature

In his autobiography, Charles Darwin acknowledged that the existence of extensive suffering in nature was fully compatible with the workings of natural selection, yet maintained that pleasure was the main driver of fitness-increasing behavior in organisms.^[1] Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins challenged Darwin's claim in his book River Out of Eden, wherein he argued that wild animal suffering must be extensive due to the interplay of the following evolutionary mechanisms:

Selfish genes – genes are wholly indifferent to the well-being of individual organisms as long as DNA is passed on.
The struggle for existence – competition over limited resources results in the majority of organisms dying before passing on their genes.
Malthusian checks – even bountiful periods within a given ecosystem eventually lead to overpopulation and subsequent population crashes.

From this, Dawkins concludes that the natural world must necessarily contain enormous amounts of animal suffering as an inevitable consequence of Darwinian evolution.^[12] Building on this, others have argued that the prevalence of r-selected animals in the wild indicates that the average life of a wild animal is likely to be very short and end in a painful death. According this view, the average life of a wild animal should thus contain more suffering than happiness, since a painful death would outweigh any short-lived moments of happiness in their short lives.^[7]^[13]^[14]

In Bambi or Bessie: Are Wild Animals Happier? Christie Wilcox argues that wild animals do not appear to be happier than domestic animals, based on findings of wild animals having greater levels of cortisol and elevated stress responses relative to domestic animals. Additionally, unlike domestic animals, animals in the wild do not have some of their needs provided for them by human caretakers.^[15]

Relevance to the theological problem of evil

See: Evidential problem of evil

Arguments for intervention

The moral basis for interventions aimed at reducing wild animal suffering can be rights-based or welfare-based. From a rights-based perspective, if animals have a moral right to life or bodily integrity, intervention may be required to prevent such rights from being violated by other animals.^[16] From a welfare-based perspective, a requirement to intervene may arise insofar as it is possible to prevent some of the suffering experienced by wild animals without causing even more suffering.^[17] Advocates of intervention in nature argue that nonintervention is inconsistent with either of these approaches. Some proposed interventions include removing predators from wild areas,^[18] refraining from reintroducing predators,^[8]^[13] providing medical care to sick or injured animals,^[17]^[19]^[20] and rescuing wild animals from natural disasters.

Philosopher Peter Singer has argued that intervention in nature would be justified if one could be reasonably confident that this would greatly reduce wild animal suffering and death in the long run. In practice, however, Singer cautions against interfering with ecosystems because he fears that doing so would cause more harm than good.^[21]

Other authors dispute Singer's empirical claim about the likely consequences of intervening in the natural world, and argue that some types of intervention can be expected to produce good consequences overall. Economist Tyler Cowen cites examples of animal species whose extinction is not generally regarded as having been on balance bad for the world. Cowen also notes that, insofar as humans are already intervening in nature, the relevant practical question is not whether we should intervene at all, but what particular forms of intervention we should favor.^[17] Similarly, moral philosopher Jeff McMahan argues that, since humans "are already causing massive, precipitate changes in the natural world," we should favor those changes that would promote the survival "of herbivorous rather than carnivorous species." ^[10]

Potential conflict between animal rights and environmentalism

It has been argued that the common environmentalist goal of preserving the natural order is not in line with the goal of looking after the welfare of sentient animals.^[22] It has been further argued that they conflict in different cases. Examples include environmentalists supporting hunting invasive species for population control while animal rights advocates oppose it;^[23] animal rights advocates arguing for the extinction or reengineering of carnivores or r strategist species while deep ecologists defend their right to be and flourish as they are;^[24] animal rights advocates defending the reduction of wildlife areas or arguing against their expansion out of concern that most animal suffering takes place in them while environmentalists want to safeguard and expand the wild.^[13]^[25]

Ecology as intrinsically valuable

Holmes Rolston III argues that only unnatural animal suffering is a morally bad thing and that humans do not have a duty to intervene in natural cases.^[26] He celebrates carnivores in nature because of the significant ecological role they play. Others have argued that the reason that humans have a duty to protect other humans from predation is because humans are part of the cultural world rather than the natural world and so different rules apply to them in these situations.^[25]^[27] Others argue that prey animals are fulfilling their natural function, and thus flourishing, when they are preyed upon or otherwise die, since this allows natural selection to work.^[16]

The practicality of intervening in nature

Another common objection to intervening in nature is that it would be impractical, either because of the amount of work involved, or because the complexity of ecosystems would make it difficult to know whether or not an intervention would be net beneficial on balance.^[28] A reply to this is that there are already many cases in which we intervene in nature for other reasons such as for human interest in nature and environmental preservation as something valuable in their own rights.^[7]^[17]

Aaron Simmons argues that we should not intervene to save animals in nature because doing so would result in unintended consequences such as damaging the ecosystem, interfering with human projects, or resulting more animal deaths overall.^[29]

Peter Vallentyne suggests that, while humans should not eliminate predators in nature, they can intervene to help prey in more limited ways. In the same way that we help humans in need when the cost to us is small, we might help some wild animals at least in limited circumstances.^[30]