How to kill wild animals humanely for conservation
An international group offers guidance to help reduce pain and suffering in animals destined for culling.
Every year, trained professionals kill millions of wild animals in the name of conservation, human safety and to protect agriculture and infrastructure. Commercial pest-control operators, government agents and conservationists trap beavers, poison cats, shoot wolves and gas rabbits in their warrens with varying levels of ethical oversight. Now, animal-welfare experts and conservationists are making a bid to ensure that these animals get the same consideration given to pets and even to lab animals that are killed.
People use methods such as carbon dioxide gas, drowning and painful poisons, to kill non-native or ‘pest’ animals, says Sara Dubois, chief scientific officer for the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Vancouver, Canada. She considers these methods inhumane. But no one bats an eye, she says, because those animals are considered ‘bad’.
Dubois is the lead author of a set of guidelines published on 9 February in the journal Conservation Biology. The authors — a group of animal-welfare experts, conservationists and government researchers from around the world — hope the principles will become a model for the ethical review of projects that include killing wild animals. The guidelines are the result of a 2015 workshop in Vancouver.
People use methods such as carbon dioxide gas, drowning and painful poisons, to kill non-native or ‘pest’ animals, says Sara Dubois, chief scientific officer for the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Vancouver, Canada. She considers these methods inhumane. But no one bats an eye, she says, because those animals are considered ‘bad’.
Dubois is the lead author of a set of guidelines published on 9 February in the journal Conservation Biology. The authors — a group of animal-welfare experts, conservationists and government researchers from around the world — hope the principles will become a model for the ethical review of projects that include killing wild animals. The guidelines are the result of a 2015 workshop in Vancouver.
The document incorporates the latest findings in animal-welfare science, which tries to quantify the pain and suffering animals experience in different situations, including when they are killed. It says that control actions should only be undertaken if they support a clear, important and achievable goal. In addition, just because an animal is non-native or considered a ‘pest’ or ‘feral’, is, by itself, not reason enough to get rid of them.
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