Questions:
Are there promising ways to improve wild animal welfare via population control?
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 population control? What disadvantages?
- How do these pros and cons compare to the other case studies we have looked at?
What new information would be most useful for this field?
Reading:
You might want to prioritise just reading these websites, to see what is already being or might be done:
L. Hecht, Optimal population density: trading off the quality and quantity of welfare (15 mins)
The Botstiber Institute for Wildlife Fertility Control (website)
- See also this short post on why it was founded
S. Liedholm, Our proposal for a field study of pigeon contraception (5 mins)
B. Masters, Can Fertility Control Keep Wild Horse Herds in Check? (5 mins)
Oxitec, Our Technology (5 mins)
K. E. Lange, The long road to fertility control (5 mins)
American Bird Conservancy, Trap, Neuter, Release (5 mins)
T. B. Lauber, et al. The role of ethical judgments related to wildlife fertility control (40 mins)
P. Eskander, An Analysis of Lethal Methods of Wild Animal Population Control: Vertebrates (45 mins)
P. Eskander, An Analysis of Lethal Methods of Wild Animal Population Control: Invertebrates (40 mins)
(Optional) H. Cayuela et al., Multiple density‐dependent processes shape the dynamics of a spatially structured amphibian population (1hr)
