Questions:
Are there promising ways to prevent wild animals from suffering from disease & parasites?
- Can some of this work reduce the human burden of disease too?
What work has been done already? What work might be done in the future?
- What could 1 extra person do in this field? 10? 100?
Are there crucial issues from previous weeks where the view we take on them affects how good we think these interventions will be?
What advantages are there to working on disease & parasites? What disadvantages?
- How do these pros and cons compare to the other case studies we will look at?
What new information would be most useful for this field?
Reading:
G. Ray, Parasite Load and Disease in Wild Animals (40 mins)
Animal Ethics, Introduction to Wild Animal Suffering, p.24-34 and p.155 (30 mins)
J. Capozzelli, Reducing the burden of disease: the One Health approach (15 mins)
Animal Ethics, The potential to reduce the suffering of animals living in the wild by using eDNA sampling (30 mins)
S. P. Sinkins and F. Gould, Gene drive systems for insect disease vectors (45 mins)
- You might instead read this more accessible blogpost: "Gene Drives" And CRISPR Could Revolutionize Ecosystem Management
Next in the Wild Animal Welfare Curriculum
Case studies of interventions in wild animal welfare - population control
Case studies of interventions in wild animal welfare - population control