WAWC calls for integration of ethical principles into wildlife management policy
The Wild Animal Welfare Committee (WAWC) has published a new Position Statement setting out how it sees the international consensus principles for ethical wildlife control (“the ethical principles”) (Dubois et al., 2017) being implemented in the UK.
The ethical principles were developed by a panel of 20 experts convened in 2015 at the University of British Columbia to explore international perspectives on and experiences with human–wildlife conflicts. The resultant seven principles, published in 2017, were designed to be suitable for incorporation into international or domestic regulations and decision-making by public authorities or by private operators such as land managers, animal control businesses and others.
WAWC Chair Dr Pete Goddard said:
“The WAWC has supported the ethical principles since they were first published, and we are pleased to see them cited in a wide range of literature. But more needs to be done on a practical level to integrate such principles into UK wildlife management policy and legislation. As set out in our paper, taking the ethical principles approach to species licensing, ‘pest’ control, culling, translocations or reintroductions could improve outcomes for people and wild animals alike. Applying the ethical principles would test the need for proposed control operations as well as challenging their acceptability.”
Dr Goddard continued:
“If we genuinely recognise the sentience of animals – as our governments claim – we need to take a more modern approach to wildlife management. Applying ethical principles provides for a comprehensive analysis of the necessity for control, its benefits, its feasibility, its costs to people and animals, alternatives, and its effects on animal welfare in terms of the humaneness of the physical methods employed.
“That is not currently happening. To take just one example: the third ethical principle requires the setting of clear and achievable outcome-based objectives for wildlife control efforts, which are continuously monitored and adaptive. In the UK badger cull, we have seen a constant focus on reducing badger populations even though early experiments and ongoing monitoring indicated that the culls do not significantly reduce Bovine TB in cattle. Using the ethical principles could well have improved the outcomes as well as saving the lives of many badgers.”
The WAWC is calling on the UK administrations and their agencies to work towards formal integration of ethical principles into all levels of policy, legislation and decision-making about wildlife management. Among other things, the paper recommends that:
· Future legislation and regulation (such as species licensing policy), as well as non-statutory codes and guidance, should provide for the inclusion of the ethical principles.
· The UK administrations and their statutory nature agencies should commit to supporting individual voluntary projects or programmes to facilitate use of the ethical principles.
· Individuals, land managers or businesses carrying out wildlife control should be incentivised to carry out ethical assessments of proposed interventions, to help decide on appropriate methods and ensure that they provide the desired outcomes while causing the least welfare harm.
· Researchers should carry out ethical reviews prior to any research on wild animals, and Universities, journals, and funders should require such assessment.
WAWC Position Paper No.3 – Ethical principles in wildlife management https://www.wawcommittee.org/resources
Dubois, S., Fenwick, N., Ryan, E.A., Baker, L., Baker, S.E., Beausoleil, N.J., Carter, S., Cartwright, B., Costa, F., Draper, C. and Griffin, J., 2017. International consensus principles for ethical wildlife control. Conservation Biology, 31(4), pp.753-760. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.12896