Questions
How many wild animals are there?
- Which, if any, are (affectively) sentient or can suffer?
What are the lives of wild animals like?
- How good are they? How bad are they?
- Are there some wild animals whose lives are ‘not worth living’?
What are the biggest sources of suffering in nature? How can we tell?
- Do wild animals suffer from the same kinds of experiences as humans?
Reading
G. Ray, How many wild animals are there? (5 mins)
Animal Ethics, Criteria for recognizing sentience, and What beings are conscious? (15 mins)
- On affective sentience: A. Soryl, Establishing the Moral Significance of Wild Animal Welfare and Considering Practical Methods of Intervention ch. 2, p. 10-19 (20 mins)
- On insect sentience: H. Howe, Improving Pest Management for Wild Insect Welfare, p.3-5 (5 mins); (Optional) B. Tomasik, Do Bugs Feel Pain? (30 mins)
Animal Ethics, The situation of animals in the wild (10 mins)
- (Optional) For much more detail, see Introduction to Wild Animal Suffering, p16-81 (80 mins)
L. Hecht, How wild animals die: what we know so far (15 mins)
L. Hecht, Accounting for demography in the assessment of wild animal welfare (25 mins)
J. Schukraft, Research Summary: The Intensity of Valenced Experience across Species (5 mins)
J. Schukraft, Research Summary: The Subjective Experience of Time (5 mins)
T. Langkilde & R. Shine, How much stress do researchers inflict on their study animals? A case study using a scincid lizard, Eulamprus heatwolei (35 mins)
(Optional) Y.K. Ng, Towards Welfare Biology: Evolutionary Economics of Animal Consciousness and Suffering (50 mins)
- (Optional) see also: How Much Do Wild Animals Suffer? A Foundational Result on the Question is Wrong (5 mins)
(Optional) B. Tomasik, The Predominance of Wild-Animal Suffering over Happiness: An Open Problem (30 mins)
(Optional) W. Bradshaw, Assessing biomarkers of ageing as measures of cumulative animal welfare (30 mins)
(Optional) B. Tomasik, How painful is death from starvation or dehydration? (30 mins)
(Optional) P. Low et al., The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness (5 mins)
(Optional) Y. M. Bar-On et. al., The biomass distribution on Earth (25 mins)
- NB. biomass is difficult to convert to number of individuals
(Optional) Z. N. Ulzegen et al., The preference and costs of sleeping under light at night in forest and urban great tits (30 mins)
