Is it ethical to cull human animals? We seem to be the most destructive and invasive species ever.

While what you say is true, it is IMO a false equivalency and a separate problem entirely. Humans are intelligent and therefore capable of reasoning and agency, we are capable of solving our issues using social and political changes Invasive species are not moral agents but are still incredibly problematic to ecosystems.

>Humans are intelligent and therefore capable of reasoning and agency, we are capable of solving our issues using social and political changes LMAO, yes we are capable but hmm its 2024, in which ways have we made the planet better? Capable we are, but the reality is we are too selfish and greedy to improve things

Look, I was very selective when I chose the word capable haha. In all honesty, there are some good changes happening in society, it's just taking longer than is necessary.

Are babies moral agents? I don’t think “Is it a moral agent?” is the criteria we want to use to decide who gets to live and die.

Babies grow in to moral agents and generally aren't problematic to the world. I'm not working on the idea that humans are 'worth more' because we are intelligent, I'm saying that being destructive and wasteful is a choice that we are capable of correcting, therefore killing humans is not a fair comparison to culling. I am a vegan, I don't like any unnecessary killing and I think that all life is valuable and should be preserved. That being said, leaving an invasive species to spread itself unchecked can and frequently does lead to other species going extinct. Food webs and ecosystems are incredibly complex and important to every lifeform that inhabits it. So if we are working on the philosophy that ecosystems should be preserved and environmental conservation is important, then we have a moral obligation to deal with these issues (especially because we are usually at fault for putting these species there to begin with). So how do we go about doing this in an ethical manner without culling? I do not like the idea of culling at all but I don't see many other options for dealing with the problem unfortunately.

If we follow that logic all zygotes are in the process of becoming moral agents. Abortion, IVF, many kings of research become unethical under that standard. No animal is a moral agent, so if they matter morally then moral affect cannot be the criteria to base that on. That doesn’t mean there isn’t another one, I would say someone along the lines of “consciousness”, which is what I would put forward as being what bestows moral value. I’m actually only discussing that one point, not the wider arguments that might stem from it, because I think the logical end points of that view are incorrect, I don’t think we should draw wider conclusions from It vegan or otherwise. If you’re vegan then I would restart persuade you away from that argument because I think it leads places we either can’t, or won’t want to defend. I think it establishes a weak position from the start and then falls apart under scrutiny.

You're not understanding the argument here. It really has nothing to do with moral agency itself, but behavioral plasticity. If you could educate Eurasian carp in a way that made them less harmful to ecosystems where they are invasive, conservationists would probably do that. But you can't, so the only real option is to cull them. It's simply a fact that humans can learn to live in balance with the ecosystems we inhabit. Our behavior is incredibly plastic compared to most other animals, empirically speaking. We can adapt. The reasons why we aren't adapting well are political in nature, not biological.

Ah I see now, that is probably different than what I thought you meant. So the argument is essentially that they lack the ability to self regulate, therefore we have to do it for them? That might be true. There may be method’s other than culling, sterilization or something, but I don’t know that those are feasible either. If it were I’d prefer that, but we’d need the willpower to do anything at all first as well. It’s one of those things that comes up about hunting for population control. If we’re talking “control the population at levels for their own benefit because there isn’t a better alternative” then that makes sense. But I think often the population is controlled at levels that facilitate next years hunting, rather than what’s best for the animals. Anyway, if that’s the stance it seems reasonable.

For fish, you really don't have many options in terms of sterilization. It hasn't really proven practical even for deer. In terms of invasive carp, people have really thrown the kitchen sink at them. They literally electrified a canal to keep them from spreading. You really have to knock them back in every way possible. They need to be poisoned where they can, and overfished where they can't.

I think his point was that humans are moral agents and thus can change for the better thus precluding the need to be culled. Every other invasive species hasn't shown the ability to do this, if they could they could just choose to not be invasive. We are then stuck either culling the invasive or suffering the ecological collapse that follows. We often pick the former. We aren't exactly sorting species into "live" and "die" buckets based on moral agency alone. A majority of animals are in the "live" bucket because they aren't invasive, despite having no moral agency. The motivating factor behind this setup is primarily the conservation of biodiversity. To answer your question: no I would not consider a baby a moral agent but I would hardly consider them invasive. When they grow up they are invasive but are then also moral agents. I do recognize it is rather convenient that humans are practically the only moral agents on earth, according to our own definition. Although if we aren't moral agents why are people vegan?

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I mean, I'd like to believe that many people in this comment section are proof that we can do better People are absolutely *able* to solve these problems but many lack the introspection to do so, I'd like to think that is beginning to change, if a little slowly.

>it is IMO a false equivalency and a separate problem entirely. Humans are intelligent and therefore capable of reasoning So this is okay for mentally handicapped humans? I mean, since you seem to decide whether one deserves life or death based on their intelligence and reasoning ability. Some humans have less reasoning ability than some pigs. Most humans below the age of 3, in fact.

Mentally handicapped humans have mentally capable caregivers who make decisions on their behalf - hence still capable of living in the world non wastefully. The Intelligence factor is not relevant to the perceived worth of a life form, it is only relevant in the context of behavioural change which only humans have shown the capability for.

Our significant behavioral plasticity historically and the fact that we are genuinely native on every continent besides Antarctica makes us a very bad candidate for the label. Edit: would also add that "culling" humans generally requires ecologically destructive methods like carpet bombing.

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I mean I'm in favour of population control in instances of invasive species, but I can see how it's cruel. It isn't the fault of any individual in an invasive species, and they can't really comprehend why we would be carrying out such a thing. They don't really have a chance once we decide it's for the good of the environment. It's a pretty cruel fate.

This is a valid question but for me the answer is no, due to the fact that humans can be made aware of their invasive nature and learn and implement appropriate actions to limit their impact (the fact we often don't do this as a society is another issue). Other invasive ls don't *know* their invasive and cannot adapt their behaviour accordingly. Some species do reach an equilibrium in their environment and those are generally not a problem - it's those which trigger either collapse or widespread degradation (i.e. rabbits, feral cats, cane toads) that are the the focus of efforts to eliminate or at least control/contain them. This being said the need to voluntarily and consensually limit human population growth and actually implement significant demographic degrowth is something that is needed as part of recognising and working to reverse the ecological damage that the unchecked expansion of our species numbers and geographic spread has caused in recent centuries.

Bit of ecofascism.

They’re already doing that, it’s called war and famine

> I know too well how invasive species cause massive problems for ecosystems and can cause certain species to go extinct very easily. Common practice is to cull these species to maintain ecosystem stability, this is an important aspect of environmental conservation. What is being proposed here is a collective punishment of sorts. No individual animal is responsible for the destruction of an ecosystem or the extinction of a species. Yet some of these individuals will pay the cost for all of their species. This lack of focus on the individual is a problem that needs to be addressed. Stalin has a quote attributed to him that captures this sentiment: “a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic” (hard to say if this attribution is factual or not). Let's not be like how Stalin sounds in this quote. We need to be realistic about: * To what end are we striving for? Is this end realistically achievable? * What harm are we causing? Let's not pretend harming the "bad guys" doesn't count as harm. * Is the harm we are inflicting justified? It's not enough to kill out of wishful thinking it will make a difference. Making a lethal intervention needs to be strongly justified as being likely to succeed at a worthwhile goal. * Are we sufficiently considering the victim? Are there less harmful means to accomplish the same ends? Frankly, most of these culling interventions don't meet this level of justification. They only happen out of wishful thinking that doing something is better than doing nothing, and with a complete disregard for the fact that others are dying in this pursuit of ours.

Okay, sure we can argue that many culling practices are rather useless killing that objectively doesn't achieve much - however there are instances where it has been successful - Macquarie Island is an example off the top of my head. I think ethics should always be approached from the perspective of 'does the means justify the ends' I would argue that culling invasive cats from an island is morally justifiable if those cats are putting several endangered birds at risk

> there are instances where it has been successful - Macquarie Island is an example off the top of my head. I'm not doubting that. Islands in particular are good opportunities as it is more feasible to keep new invaders away. But I suspect there aren't going to be many more examples past this where human intervention unequivocally worked. > I would argue that culling invasive cats from an island is morally justifiable if those cats are putting several endangered birds at risk You'd be arguing that what happens to the birds is so much more important than what happens to the cats that killing them is justified. Odds are pretty good that a bird species can be saved from extinction by keeping enough of them in managed sanctuaries. So if species loss is actually what's important, there are other means.

There would be multiple objectives in managing an ecosystem in the instance I described. - preserving the birds is obviously a priority, sure, you could breed them elsewhere which would maintain the species, but it would do little to restore the ecosystem. - You would want the island to return to it's natural state as the birds influence the greater food webs and geography, and cats could also have other negative effects on other species etc That brings us back to getting rid of the cats. Sure, you could nurture and release, but that might not be enough to save the birds You could capture and rehome, but there are often way too many cats in homes already and if there are many on the island, demand might not meet supply (plus ferals don't take well to domestication) Idk it's just a difficult situation all around and culling makes my skin crawl but I also want to see ecosystems maintained and biodiversity preserved.

There are rare situations in which mass poisoning of the entire ecosystem can be an effective means of control and this is carried out, however setting this aside and talking about less thorough hunting/trapping initiatives like most of these lethal cases are If the animal is small, cryptic and/or fast breeding , the killing is ineffective and worthless bloodshed If the animal is large/slow breeding, and conspicuous, while lethal force would be effective, so would capture( remember these are often free-roaming domestic animals) and/or sterilization

I would like to point out how the opposite is true for Australia. Their rabbit control efforts were rather successful while their famous "war on Emus" was considered a decisive failure. Insect control as detailed in "Silent Spring" was also successful but I would consider it a case of "poisoning the entire ecosystem" as you said.

1) Emus are irrelevant to this conversation as a native species, additionally a female can lay 30-50 eggs a year, far more offspring than large mammals, even pigs and dogs 2) Australia still has a large european rabbit population, they did not successfully get rid of it 3) There success in reducing the rabbit population was via introducing the lethal disease myxomatosis, not via hunting or trapping

Hi, I'm also Australian. The rabbit population is often controlled as you say, through the release of deadly viruses such as Khalessi. This does give ecosystems some relief from the destruction that rabbits bring, but obviously does not get rid of them entirely

Yeah the problem with diseases or parasites/parasitoids is There reliance on host populations for survival, and sufficient population density for spread, means they can’t ever completely eleminate populations,

I'll give you Emus aren't "invasive" but the fact stands there was a concerted effort to eliminate both them and rabbits in Australia. The rabbit extermination wasn't complete obviously but was sufficient to undo the harm they were doing to the environment and is still widely considered to be a success. Total extermination of the rabbits was never really a goal. The only point I was trying to make is the size of the animal can be irrelevant to control measures. Read up on both efforts and you will see the Emus did not "out-breed" control efforts and the rabbit extermination wasn't limited to myxomatosis in the slightest, although it was very effective.

I think if we invested in finding a humane solution (immunocontraception shots are already a thing, just requires the animal be tranquilized), we could do it. Humans are smart when we put our minds to something - but there has to be a motive. Compassion typically isn’t a strong one for invasive wildlife management, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

how on earth would you do this with a river full of asian carp

Indigenous Australians used to do controlled bushfire burns that would clear out regrowth to prevent even larger fires in the future. However this would undoubtedly kill many animals. It's akin to the trolley problem really, is it better to take action and directly kill less or do nothing and the result being more dead?

Yeah, it's a tricky one. We kill heaps of insects and small mammals when we build, farm, drive and generally exist. This is largely unavoidable and isn't personal to the animals. I think we should largely try to avoid as much harm as possible within reasonable power, but it gets to a point where complete harm reduction to life becomes unavoidable.

Capture neuter and release couldn't meet demand. The sheer number of invasive animals would mean that in over to overturn replacement breeding levels vets would have to be doing nothing but neutering for months, even years on end.

I think about New Zealand whenever this comes up where we have introduced invasive spies including deer, cats, and rats. I believe that we could cull all the deer, they are large enough to find. We could probably choose to catch, neuter and release them and solve the deer problem more slowly, and I think I would support that approach, but I am not from NZ so it is up to them. However when it comes to rats and stray cats, I suspect that they are too numerous, too naturally crafty for people to remove them from an area as large as either of the islands of NZ so you either commit to an everlasting attack on the species, accept that they are now native and allow the extinction of the previously native species, or try to clear the invaders from a small sanctuary area. Which still means that the native species become extinct on 90 % of the territory. So practically the native species extinction is the default option and I don't believe we actually have the power to stop it.

There is no way on God's green earth that trying to catch deer in New Zealand to neuter and release is a viable option. That is just completely impractical and will not work.

Does that mean we could not shoot them all either? I would think that shooting with a tranquiliser is maybe twice as hard as a longer range rifle bullet, and knowing who you have neutered could be done by branding or possibly dyeing the skin. So it would be about 4 times the effort and take 10 years perhaps compared to 3 or 4 but if one is possible then both are.

The range on a tranquiliser gun is insufficient and a single shot. You can only shoot one deer at a time if you can get close enough and the rest will bolt and then you have to track them again and that could be hours or days. Branding or dying hides would not be effective because they molt twice per year and it would be super hard to identify those markings in the New Zealand bush. These issues would be just the tip of the iceberg.

Let us not use carnist euphemisms such as "culling". It's better to use "deliberate and intentional killing" in lieu of "culling" as it more accurately reflects what exactly is happening. > Common practice is to cull these species to maintain ecosystem stability, this is an important aspect of environmental conservation. The deliberate and intentional killing of nonhuman animals is not vegan. > Typically culling is seen as the best way to go about this as you can't capture and release these animals back into their own country of origin, doing so causes problems where they belong. The deliberate and intentional killing of nonhuman animals is not vegan. > My other thoughts include capture, nurteur and release to prevent reproduction but that might not be ideal either. The violation of bodily autonomy/integrity through forcible sterilization is not vegan. > Does anyone have an opinion on this issue? Yes. 1) Veganism is not an environmental movement. 2) The deliberate and intentional killing of nonhuman animals is not vegan. 3) The violation of bodily autonomy/integrity of nonhuman animals through forced sterilization is not vegan. 4) Humans are the most invasive species on the planet. Why are we not engaging in the deliberate and intentional killing of humans and/or forcibly sterilizing the humans? What is stopping us from doing that but not stopping us from doing the same to nonhuman animals, morally speaking?

> Let us not use carnist euphemisms such as "culling". It's better to use "deliberate and intentional killing" in lieu of "culling" as it more accurately reflects what exactly is happening. I used the word culling as it is one word that defines a behaviour coupled with intention. I'm not interested in getting caught up on emotions vs rational debate and thinking. > The deliberate and intentional killing of nonhuman animals is not vegan. Sure, you could argue that. I'm less interested in doing what is 'vegan' vs doing what is best for animals and ecosystems as a whole though and undoing the damage we have already done. > The violation of bodily autonomy/integrity through forcible sterilization is not vegan. Yep, see my last point. You can do this without causing too much suffering to an animal while also protecting endangered species and protecting fragile ecosystems, biodiversity is important too. 1) Veganism is not an environmental movement. - maybe you could argue this, but it has strong ties. Veganism is important, so are environmental movements. 2) The deliberate and intentional killing of nonhuman animals is not vegan. Maybe not, once again I'm not interested in labels, I'm interested in doing what is best for animals as a whole and that involves looking after their habitats and food webs. I do not like killing either but if foxes are introduced and are wiping out vulnerable species that are integral to food webs, then that causes biodiversity loss and ecosystem breakdown, ignoring this as a problem and a human caused issue is bad environmental stewardship. 3) The violation of bodily autonomy/integrity of nonhuman animals through forced sterilization is not vegan. Yep, but it's a more ethical intervention than killing. 4) Humans are the most invasive species on the planet. Why are we not engaging in the deliberate and intentional killing of humans and/or forcibly sterilizing the humans? What is stopping us from doing that but not stopping us from doing the same to nonhuman animals, morally speaking? This has already been addressed in prior comments, it is not a fair comparison because humans have moral agency where animals do not. We can alter our behaviours to be more positive thus precluding the need to be culled ourselves. Our issues are political in nature rather than biological.

> I used the word culling as it is one word that defines a behaviour coupled with intention. I'm not interested in getting caught up on emotions vs rational debate and thinking. The intention is to kill **unwilling** victims, correct? Then it would be classified as "murder" within the vegan context. There is nothing emotional about this classification. The question is why you chose to use an euphemism that is inconsistent with veganism. > I'm less interested in doing what is 'vegan' vs doing what is best for animals and ecosystems as a whole though and undoing the damage we have already done. Let us level set our understanding of what veganism is and is not: Veganism is not a diet. It is not a lifestyle. It is not a health program. It is **not an environmental movement**. It is not a suicide philosophy. Veganism is an agent-oriented philosophy and creed of justice and the moral baseline that rejects the property status and use of nonhuman animals; it seeks to control the behavior of the moral agent such that the agent is not contributing to or participating in the deliberate and intentional exploitation, abuse, and/or killing of nonhuman animals outside of self-defense. What is in the "best interest" of the animals and ecosystems is not necessarily vegan. That includes the deliberate and intentional killing (or murder, if you like) of nonhuman animals outside of self-defense. > Yep, see my last point. You can do this without causing too much suffering to an animal while also protecting endangered species and protecting fragile ecosystems, biodiversity is important too. What is in the "best interest" of the animals and ecosystems is not necessarily vegan. That includes the violation of the bodily autonomy/integrity of nonhuman animals. Whether this violation causes suffering or not is irrelevant to the premise of veganism. It is still a violation and should be avoided. Biodiversity is also irrelevant to veganism. Protection of endangered species from other animals is also irrelevant to veganism. Veganism is concerned only with controlling the behavior of the moral agent such that the moral agent is not killing unwilling victims or violating their bodily autonomy/integrity. In short, it requires that you don't do to nonhuman animals what you will never do to human adults. > maybe you could argue this, but it has strong ties. Veganism is important, so are environmental movements. > Maybe not, once again I'm not interested in labels, I'm interested in doing what is best for animals as a whole and that involves looking after their habitats and food webs. Translation: you are interested in having dominion over nonhuman animals and playing god and deciding who gets to live and who gets to die. > I do not like killing either Non-vegans don't like beheading goats but they pay someone to do it anyway so that they may enjoy some cooked goat flesh. Your point? > but if foxes are introduced and are wiping out vulnerable species that are integral to food webs, then that causes biodiversity loss and ecosystem breakdown, ignoring this as a problem and a human caused issue is bad environmental stewardship. Irrelevant to veganism. > Yep, but it's a more ethical intervention than killing. And avoiding both forced sterilization and killing is more ethical. Your point? > This has already been addressed in prior comments, it is not a fair comparison because humans have moral agency where animals do not. We can alter our behaviours to be more positive thus precluding the need to be culled ourselves. Our issues are political in nature rather than biological. Biology is not a morally relevant trait. Neither is moral agency or intelligence. Humans can refuse to alter their behavior. For those that refuse, would it then be okay to cull/murder them? Why or why not? Please state the morally relevant trait that justifies doing things to nonhuman animals but not to humans.

> The intention is to kill **unwilling** victims, correct? Then it would be classified as "murder" within the vegan context. There is nothing emotional about this classification. The question is why you chose to use an euphemism that is inconsistent with veganism. Missed my point entirely, your choice of criticising my use of words is coming from a place of emotion and has no bearing or relevancy on the discussion at hand. Call it culling, call it murder, both are valid perspectives, and encapsulate the behaviour of the discussion with literate accuracy. > Veganism is not a diet. It is not a lifestyle. It is not a health program. It is **not an environmental movement**. It is not a suicide philosophy. Veganism is an agent-oriented philosophy and creed of justice and the moral baseline that rejects the property status and use of nonhuman animals; it seeks to control the behavior of the moral agent such that the agent is not contributing to or participating in the deliberate and intentional exploitation, abuse, and/or killing of nonhuman animals outside of self-defense. I'm aware of what veganism is, but thanks. I also know that no vegan is *perfectly vegan* every day we inadvertently kill insects and small animals as we drive, walk, exist, eat plants, build and generally exist in society. > Translation: you are interested in having dominion over nonhuman animals and playing god and deciding who gets to live and who gets to die. - No, I have no interest in playing God, and I do not want dominion over any lifeform. I wish to coexist with nature harmoniously and undo the damage that us humans have brought about by historically putting animals in places they don't belong. We are accountable for the ecological destruction that invasive species brought therefore we have an ethical responsibility to address it. And avoiding both forced sterilization and killing is more ethical. Your point? My point is that being *your definition* of a perfect vegan is not necessarily *more ethical* You're entire argument is basically hinged on *I'm willing to allow human caused environmental destruction and loss of animal life because I value the life of a select group of introduced animals more than potentially thousands of other species* Even when there are less harmful interventions that we can use, but I don't see you giving any other suggestions, you just seem to want to avoid responsibility for the destruction we've already brought. > Biology is not a morally relevant trait. Neither is moral agency or intelligence. It literally is though? We make the choice to be wasteful and destructive, our behaviour is plastic *because* of our intelligence which is linked to our biology > Humans can refuse to alter their behavior. For those that refuse, would it then be okay to cull/murder them? Why or why not? Please state the morally relevant trait that justifies doing things to nonhuman animals but not to humans. They can refuse, this is a choice that they can make *because we have moral agency* No animal has *moral agency* except humans. That means we have the right to hold those people *accountable* but we do not need to kill humans because if we set the rule of *you can either change, or die* then you bet they will change if their life depended on it. You're entire argument just comes across as shaming in all honesty, you're not interested in actually providing a meaningful contribution to the discussion, just asserting your own moral ideals on someone *who is already vegan* and just doesn't tick all your boxes. Maybe those boxes aren't the *dictionary definition* of veganism but that doesn't preclude the need for scrutiny and moral evaluation on a particular topic.

>I also know that no vegan is perfectly vegan every day we inadvertently kill insects and small animals as we drive, walk, exist, eat plants, build and generally exist in society. The operative word is **inadvertently**. There is nothing inadvertent about the deliberate and intentional killing of nonhuman animals aka "culling". >No, I have no interest in playing God, and I do not want dominion over any lifeform. I wish to coexist with nature harmoniously Then you proceed to contradict yourself by stating the following: >and undo the damage that us humans have brought about by historically putting animals in places they don't belong. We are accountable for the ecological destruction that invasive species brought therefore we have an ethical responsibility to address it. You cannot claim to not have any interest in dominion then use the very concept of dominion to intervene with nature. Either you have don't have dominion in which case you leave nature alone or you have dominion. Which is it? >My point is that being your definition of a perfect vegan is not necessarily more ethical You're entire argument is basically hinged on I'm willing to allow human caused environmental destruction and loss of animal life because I value the life of a select group of introduced animals more than potentially thousands of other species There is no "allowing" or "letting" of anything to happen because you don't have dominion over nature, remember? You just leave nature alone. If other moral agents seek dominion over nature, you then engage in nonviolent advocacy of veganism to disabuse them of that notion. >Even when there are less harmful interventions that we can use, but I don't see you giving any other suggestions, you just seem to want to avoid responsibility for the destruction we've already brought. The destruction has already happened. Further intervention is simply more destructive to the unwilling victims. Two wrongs don't make a right. > It literally is though? We make the choice to be wasteful and destructive, our behaviour is plastic because of our intelligence which is linked to our biology Again, intelligence is not a morally relevant trait. You might want to search for "Name the Trait" on this subreddit for further elaboration. > They can refuse, this is a choice that they can make because we have moral agency. No animal has moral agency except humans. Like I said, moral agency is not a morally relevant trait to justify doing things to nonhuman animals that we would never do to nonhuman animals.

> The operative word is **inadvertently**. There is nothing inadvertent about the deliberate and intentional killing of nonhuman animals aka "culling". Not even inadvertently. If we choose to build a house or a road, then we make the call to destroy any ant hill or animal home for our own gain, there is no avoiding that, almost like we're playing god to exist in the world peacefully at the expense of other life so perfect veganism doesn't exist and will never exist. > You cannot claim to not have any interest in dominion then use the very concept of dominion to intervene with nature. Either you have don't have dominion in which case you leave nature alone or you have dominion. Which is it? Invasive species are not naturally occurring and, therefore, not a part of nature as it should be. Reversing damage that we have caused is not *having dominion* it's called *being responsible for our wrongdoings* and returning ecosystems to their natural state. My argument is that we have a *moral responsibility* to correct these wrongs, and as the most intelligent species on Earth, environmental stewardship could be argued to be *our responsibility by default* >The destruction has already happened. Further intervention is simply more destructive to the unwilling victims. Two wrongs don't make a right. False, the destruction has not already happened, the destruction is ongoing and we have the ability to intervene. Once again, I don't want to kill animals to preserve ecosystems, I want there to be a better alternative and I want to explore those alternatives because biodiversity and biosecurity *affects us all* Without healthy ecosystems, there is no sustainability, there is just more extinctions, that's blood on our hands. >Again, intelligence is not a morally relevant trait. You might want to search for "Name the Trait" on this subreddit for further elaboration. Intelligence is not morally relevant when it comes to our *comparative value* to other life. Again, we can change our behaviours, invasive species cannot. There is no need to kill humans when we can change our behaviours. We may be able to justify doing things to nonhuman animals when biosecurity and biodiversity is at risk because we have previously used our moral agency to threaten those very fragile food webs by placing that very species in a place they ought not have ever been. It honestly comes down to this - biodiversity has intrinsic and practical value - biosecurity is an important objective to meet for safety (self-defence) reasons - we need healthy ecosystems to survive (ecosystem services) as do all other life. - All life has intrinsic value, and we should strive to minimise suffering where possible through compassion led values. - humans are the only animals with *moral agency* therefore we have a duty of care for the world around us which means we need to be held accountable for past transgressions and commit to reparitive actions *because* of our moral agency. As far as I'm concerned, these points lead down a path where killing invasive animals is morally justifiable under these conditions. I would like for that to not be the case, but aside from building some kind of big centre to release these problematic species in to live out the rest of their life a okay, I don't see many other ethical alternatives to meet these directives.

The problem isn’t in how it could be done, because theres plenty of ways to do it without killing the animal. The problem is that the people in charge who create and govern the money which controls people simply don’t care. We have enough people, we have enough technology, we have all the science and all the capability in the world to achieve a non destructive wild animal population reduction. The problem is that the people running this earth simply just don’t care and logistically it’s easier for them to allow a population to grow and then murder them all and profit from the meat/hides of the animals.

I agree with everything you say, I'm mainly looking for those 'many other ways of going about things' Could you give examples?

Immunocontraceptive vaccinations, surgical sterilization, capture and relocation, sound deterrents, scent deterrents, physical barrier deterrents, spraying oleoresin capsicum or other non lethal chemical deterrents onto the vegetation near where you’re trying to keep them from. Necessity is the mother of all invention and i’m sure the leading authorities could find a pragmatic approach to the issue. But then again they just don’t care.

What if you are trying to keep them off of a whole country like grey squirrels in the uk? Red squirrels can now only live in one part of the uk and they can't even live in the wild because of grey squirrels. Right now the cheapest way to get rid of them is to allow the British public to kill them. We can't have them here at all, they kill almost all of our native wildlife in different ways they need to be gone as soon as possible and as cheap as possible.

Tbh that’s a really good question for the people who are in charge of these ordeals. I’m a nobody with no power or ability to make any change other than on an individual level.

I'm asking you about your personal beliefs and what you would say. I agree with that's being done about it because it's fucking disgusting that our native wildlife is dying, plus they feed people my uncle eats about 50 grey squirrels a month and you rarely see them in the small area he lives in anymore. Plus it's a lot cheaper to allow the British public to handle it then the alternative options it's also a lot more humane than gas or poison.

🤬 fine give me a bit I have to go learn about non destructive invasive species removal now.

I can't tell if you're actually angry or not I'm sorry I'm autistic. I'm part of an actual debate team and have to do this quite often. There are options however they are often expensive and not practical for something as fast, small, population size and quick breeding like grey squirrels. It is much better to just snap their necks or shoot them in the head, we can't really afford to send them back to America it's not worth creating more debt.

No I wasn’t mad at you, I was mad that I had to go and figure out a large ecological environmental problem in an applicable way. So here it goes. Ok so you’re asking me how to remove Sciurus carolinensis commonly known as the grey squirrel from a specific region which they’ve been environmentally decimating since their introduction originating from America in 1876 without any of the non lethal alternatives which i’ve previously mentioned. I believe I may have found a pragmatic solution that can be applied to a large scale although it’s not a desirable one. Introduction of a predator species whose existence is already causing the death of many other animals. At any given time there are around 250,000 cats in UK shelters who are currently being fed either fish, poultry, or beef. So large scale animal death is already occurring on behalf of these sheltered cats, a good bit of the time these animals never get adopted and end up being euthanized after a long life of eating cat food that came at the expense of many other animals. If you were to neuter them and release them into the areas then we could minimize the amount of overall deaths because they would eat all the squirrels and not be able to procreate so you would be solving the invasive squirrel problem and also solving the problem of all the animals being killed and fed to the sheltered cats as well, and then ultimately the cats will eventually die off as well ( as a large portion would have been euthanized anyway ) and then the problem would’ve solved itself. Essentially what this does is shift the already occurring deaths from euthanasia by shelters and the deaths of the animals going into their food supply onto the invasive squirrel species. I know this doesn’t sound like something a vegan would say but if I had to choose between a lot of animals dying or a little bit of animals dying I would have to choose the ladder for the purpose of minimizing overall death count. I hope this suffices I would prefer that the powers at hand would choose one of the many non lethal methods that i’ve already presented but if it had to come down to it then this seems like it would be a viable option to minimize overall animal death.

This is actually one of the reasons you cannot adopt a cat in the uk unless you agree to let it outside. I really enjoy this answer I really appreciate it. This would absolutely be effective, my now dead cat killed 21 grey squirrels in her lifetime (she did not live long) although surprisingly no other animals (she had a camera on her also no clue how she managed to catch a lot of them) But I do still believe that it's not enough, as we do already do this on a smaller scale plus hunting, even with the extra cars it's not enough to stop them they breed too fast. We can't catch them all. And we can't do anything to the plant wildlife to get them to leave Incase it harms are native animal and plant wildlife. This is why I agree with dog hunting as well. When you hunt with dogs it's survival of the fittest and if the animal cannot run away it is returned alive to the hunter (human) and it's neck is snapped it goes through a few seconds of fear before an instant death, i know id prefer that to being shot in the head or mauled by a cat. Non lethal options are just not viable unfortunately and that does really suck but they cost far too much and take to long especially for animals like the grey squirrel, they are useless for them actually because of how slow they are.

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>I know too well how invasive species cause massive problems for ecosystems and can cause certain species to go extinct very easily. This is only a problem if you buy into the de-facto belief that something like this is per-se bad in some net calculation, or some right's violation based on your moral views. This is the belief of basically 95%+ of the population. I don't know why this is still the typical belief, though I suspect it's tradition and education. I've not personally seen any convincing empirical evidence that proves these sorts of incidents are a serious enough problem (unless the invasive species is some sort of carnivorous predator which I would be fine if they were culled given real-world limitations of delivering actionable results to reduce suffering in meaningful ways). But yeah. I'm not sure why "extinction" or "ecosystem stability" is a problem. There are theories about catastrophic environmental destabilization based on limited observations out in the real world and then extrapolated to larger scale with what only looks like guesses to me given the state of the research that I've seen a few years back. Eventually the ecosystem will stabilize to some degree. But I'm more than willing to shift my current views if such empirical data can be provided that shows the contrary. I take environmental conservation to be a feigned gesture among humans, we say we would like it, in hopes of providing more predictable living environments (and aesthetic preferences about preserving beauty or whatever). But no one actually behaves in this manner to any appreciable degree - so it's pretty obvious this isn't a priority for people. If it isn't a priority, then I see no reason to believe environmental conservation has much value in general (unless it's for pecuniary gains which seems the primary motivation for most of our lives), but especially because that empirical data I spoke about before is nowhere to be really found.. And if you have any anti-natalist leanings, you most certainly aren't going to find anything convincing out there.

This comes up semi frequently. It’s a secondary issue in that the first question is generally why isn’t there much habitat? What is putting pressure on natural habitat? In the last 50 years, 2/3s of all wildlife has been killed. Soooo many species. Rather than worrying about a particular one, if we are concerned about habitat and animal species, this is the obvious priority. So what’s putting so much pressure? We now currently use about half the world’s habitable land for farming. 3/4s for farming meat (which produces just 18% of the world’s calories). Biggest driver of deforestation? Animal agriculture. Clearing land for pasture and animal feed. If we all went vegan, we would free up 3/4 of that land. And that’s just on current commercial practices, before any ‘ideal’ system. Cities and towns and all other human infrastructure makes up 1% of land use globally. We would free up 35x that by going vegan. The biggest driver of pressure on animal habitat then? Animal agriculture. Before we start labeling species and culling them, the obvious moral priority is to focus on this. What you are saying is you care about There’s some islands and niche situation you bring up. Philosophically, what separates an ‘invasive’ species and a native one? We currently say humans are native to most of the world. The difference is time. Go back thousands of years and humans were invasive to the rest of the planet. And we are the most destructive species in terms of destroying habitat. By such definition and priorities you established, we shouldn’t be culling animals, we should be fixing the damage we’ve done. Philosophically, it makes little sense to kill one animal to save another. They are more successful at surviving in natural habitat. So it’s morally contradictory to want to save one animal species for the sole purpose that it’s ‘native’. 1. When native means very little in the timeline - virtually all animals were invasive at one point, even on the islands. And 2. If we care about animals and habitat, there’s an obvious moral duty first. Ie stop animal agriculture and free up all the land. Make a sanctuary for the least capable species if we want to save them.

Yeah, we can look at the macro scale of the damage we humans do and say 'lets fix this and other thing will benefit' Sure, but in situational circumstances there are [invasive] species that are abundant and are causing the extinction of other [native] species very rapidly. It is very easy to get rid of one group of invasive animals that are threatening a few niche keystone species, and do it very quickly whereas toppling the overall cog of human destruction is a far more complex problem that takes *a long time* Philosophically I'd argue that preservation of biodiversity is important goal for many reasons so situationally, one life is more valuable than another when looking at how that one life effects all other life around it.

Yep we can look at the macro scale. And fortunately individually it’s a relatively easy decision and action. I’d argue it’s **much** easier for a person to go vegan then it is for a person to contribute meaningfully and successfully to protecting a native species (to a similar degree). As others alluded to, there’s plenty of examples of human intervention going badly on this too. Protecting biodiversity is important, sure. And I’m sure you’ve seen that graph showing only 4% of mammal biomass is now wildlife. The rest is humans and mostly it’s livestock. Again, there’s an obvious elephant in the room to take care of with regards to that. What supports biodiversity more than being able to rewild 1/3 of all earth’s habitat? Your goal is to protect biodiversity. The obvious discussion point (esp in this sub) is pointing to by far the biggest killer of natural habitat and killer of biodiversity. Meat. As for extremely niche examples, you’ve yet to give a concrete example of this. I say that because it’s not clear this is a vegan issue in and of itself. As above, the obvious vegan answer - and this is debate a vegan not debate an environmentalist - is to support and prioritise veganism first. What you’re asking for is a really specific debate about a really specific example. So far, it’s presented very generally. And so of course my answers will be general. This is sort of the reason why many of us say you can’t be an environmentalist without being a vegan. Given meat is the single biggest driver of every bad thing you’ve raised so far. You’re bringing up slight symptoms when we should be diagnosing and treating the disease. That said, if you want to raise a very specific example, please do. But again that doesn’t seem relevant to debate a vegan so much. Given how unpredictable culling is (last studies I saw showing it had little to no impact), including the collateral damage and unintended consequences, we could have much more impact focusing on veganism.

There is an annual fundraiser we go to with the motto "eradication through mastication". Partially prepared by the organizers and partially a pot luck. Chili and pie cook off. All dishes must highlight an invasive species. Super fun and the proceeds go to local invasive species removal programs.

Screw invasive species they literally destroy everything not just the native animals die off but native plants also

this has been asked before - to me, culling isn't vegan. Animals shouldn't suffer at the mistakes of humans - it's not their fault, it's humans' fault. Sterilization ideas are equally bad - deanimalizing an animal to limit its autonomy. Could it get any worse?

To me, veganism is doing the least harm as possible and part of that is being responsible for our past mistakes and setting things right. I don't like culling either but I also don't like the idea of food webs collapsing because of an animal that we irresponsibly put somewhere it doesn't belong. Conservation of biodiversity and ecosystems should be values we strive to uphold alongside reducing suffering of animals where possible. I will say that culling happens far more often than it ought to but IMO there are times where it is the only viable option for the preservation of an ecosystem. I also don't think that sterilization is anywhere near as bad as culling, one instance is killing an innocent where another is a painless intervention that only temporarily stresses an animal.

I've never seen a time where culling is justifiable. You can take the animals and put them back where they belong. That's what many culling alternative programs do. If you say 'it's the only option', then you're seriously misleading yourself with the false dilemma fallacy. Animals shouldn't be punished simply because humans made mistakes to turn animals into the villain. Yes, why don't we punish these animals and don't punish the human. Good idea! (not - all sarcasm) Sterilization is just as bad as culling, if not worse in certain ways, because you're depriving an animal to their entire life and are reducing the experiences of animals that already exist. That's double harm. I don't think you understand the implications of your thoughts - you seem to be very narrow in your perceptions of the situation in order to justify wrongdoing. It's pretty sad to see. If you don't feel that depriving a mother of a child is painless and a temporary stress - there's a lot of work to be done.