Abstract Research on endangered wildlife is vital to inform conservation, but may risk adverse welfare impacts. Following predictions that African wild dog ( Lycaon pictus ) populations could collapse as global temperatures rise, we initiated a thermal ecophysiology study to better understand weather impacts on this endangered species. Four institutional ethics committees approved our plan to surgically implant small (3.3g) thermal data loggers, using methods previously applied safely in similar species. One confirmed, and one unconfirmed, incident of adverse effects led us to refine our protocols and reduce target sample sizes. We experienced difficulties in detecting and responding to ill-effects, and our refined protocols approached the limit of what was possible with this wide-ranging species. Hence, any attempt to repeat our study would need to be carefully considered and strongly justified. Future projects performing novel invasive procedures on endangered species should recruit study animals gradually, using intensive post-surgery monitoring to inform recruitment decisions.
Abstract Private keeping of large wild cats remains contested in Europe. This qualitative study analyzes 19 semi-structured interviews with private keepers, accredited zoo staff, including veterinary and welfare expertise, and animal-protection NGO s in Czechia and Estonia. It examines how different actors justify or contest legitimacy and define good care. Across stakeholder groups, accounts of good care turn on the animal’s practical control over exposure, interaction, and daily routine. Three concerns recur: reliable retreat, refusal of husbandry or interaction without punishment, and routines that reduce rather than intensify anticipatory arousal. The two country contexts shape legitimacy. Czech respondents more often emphasize competence, legal compliance, experience, and calm daily outcomes, while Estonian respondents foreground precaution, institutional responsibility, public safety, and limited placement options for confiscated or unwanted animals. The article uses retreat, refusal, and routine as animal-centered practice indicators for comparing how care and control are justified and organized across private and accredited settings.
Abstract This article examines the legitimacy of objectifying animals in platform-mediated sharing and defines the legal limits of commodifying sentient beings in digital markets. It argues that animal sharing fundamentally differs from ordinary sharing arrangements due to the combined impact of legal ontology, welfare effects, and market structure. Unlike inanimate assets with quantifiable wear, animals face cumulative welfare risks from repeated transfers, unstable environments, and fragmented responsibility. Because existing property, contract, and tort laws fail to address harms from short-term, rental-like platform access with disclaimed control, the article advocates for a welfare-sensitive legal framework. It proposes treating platform intermediation as a legally relevant source of system effects, alongside clearer responsibility rules, stricter due diligence obligations, and enforceable limits on animal commodification.
This study addresses the limited ethical oversight of animal research in Ecuador, where only two protocols have been approved by external IACUC s despite PUCE ’s strong research productivity. To address this gap, it proposes bioethical guidelines for establishing a CEIA (Ethics Committee for Animal Research) at PUCE , focusing on Biomedicine and related disciplines. The guidelines were developed through a qualitative analysis of policies from 20 leading universities ranked in the 2020 qs World Ranking for Life Sciences and Medicine, using Atlas.ti (v.8). They emphasize that animals should be used in research only when no suitable alternatives exist and their use is scientifically justified. The recommendations highlight the 3Rs principle (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement), animal welfare, and the need for trained and continuously educated personnel to ensure humane and ethically sound research practices. The revised version incorporates the reviewer’s suggestions and includes the updated figure with the required specifications.
One Health ( OH ) is lauded for addressing how human, animal, and ecosystem health can and should be understood conjunctly. This paper will address two challenges of OH : First, conceptual unclarity and, second, the necessity of normative reasoning when planning and implementing OH projects. OH will be analytically unpacked by discussing its different conditions and the strength of and relations between those conditions. The analysis benefits reasoning about normative disagreements between the conditions before launching OH projects, and potential goal conflicts in their implementation. Both on conceptual and practical levels, the need will be stressed for ethical analysis that include human health, animal ethics, and environmental ethics, yet is also attentive to potential disagreements between these parts. After the conditions of OH are unpacked, it will be argued that balancing the conditions must be done in a transparent and systematic manner.
The purpose of this article is to conduct a legal analysis of the current Russian model for dealing with animals without owners (stray animals) and to evaluate its advantages and disadvantages. The authors demonstrate that the measures taken by the authorities are insufficient to reduce the number of stray animals. The problem must be viewed in the broader context. We propose a set of organisational measures, including compulsory registration of all domestic animals, a change in waste-management policy, the addition of new offences to the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation, and the settlement of ownership of stray animals (the optimal solution is to assign them to municipal ownership, thereby codifying existing judicial practice of awarding compensation against municipalities for non-pecuniary damage suffered by citizens bitten by stray dogs). Informational, educational and cultural initiatives aimed at fostering a humane attitude towards animals are also required. Our findings may be of interest to countries facing similar challenges.
If nonhuman animals must be reared for mass consumption, then the least we can do as humans is treat them humanely. The continued use of farrowing crates (barred metal enclosures where sows are confined for 35 days) in commercial farms, reflects a reluctance to do even that. While studies on alternative systems (including industry-funded ones) have shown positive welfare outcomes for sows, concerns about piglet mortality and profitability have hindered their adoption. However, piglet mortality estimates that exclude causes of death are poor indicators of system viability. Crate-alternative studies also exclude sow mortality and emotional state indicators, reducing their reliability in providing a holistic picture. Unbiased research, systems-improvement, more comprehensive welfare measures, farmer training (including efforts to shift attitudes), policy incentives, and stronger legislation could support a transition to more ethical systems. Public awareness campaigns may also be key, helping to drive the adoption of humane practices through consumer pressure.
This article responds to two philosophers’ critiques of a previous article in which the author argued that, as a strategy for systemic transformation based on and driven by capital investment, cultured meat is incapable of posing a real challenge to the capitalist system of animal exploitation and commodification upon which the global food system currently depends. In response to the philosophers’ claim that cultured meat can play a role in ending animal farming, it argues that cultured meat’s status as a capitalist techno-fix makes it fundamentally incapable of challenging, let alone transforming, industrial animal farming. In the following section, it refutes their second argument that resources invested in cultured meat did not undermine alternative strategies and explains the difference between solutions and responses, which can provide open-ended potential starting points for exploring alternatives to an animal-dependent food system itself, rather than just substitutes for the problematic things it produces. In the last section, it addresses their last critique that cultured meat should be a part of any strategy for political change in the food system by explaining how the cultured meat techno-fix is in fact an effort to circumvent the need for political, economic, and socio-cultural transformation, none of which it can facilitate as it serves to maintain the status quo for all three.
In ethical debates regarding modern technologies in livestock production, virtue ethics plays a subordinate role. We address this issue by providing a virtue ethical framework centered on mercy. First, we define mercy as a virtue, which applies when the moral agent can harm someone vulnerable and refrains from doing so. Second, we link mercy to empathic concern, which we argue to be crucial for virtue because it informs moral agents about pain in others and inhibits them from harming others. Drawing on an existing argument from military ethics about the viciousness of unlearning empathy in the case of soldiers learning to kill, we problematize animal slaughter. Third, we argue that a virtuous society promotes eudaimonia in its citizens and therefore should not require them to become merciless. We conclude that societies should not endorse practices that cultivate mercilessness, but encourage practices that increase mercy towards others, including farmed animals.
This paper discusses the role of zoos and aquariums ( ZOAQ s) in addressing ‘loss of place’, which we see as a convergence of habitat destruction, biodiversity loss (species extinction), and animal suffering. Employing the metaphor of philosophical plumbing, this paper reveals how this crisis is entangled with cultural assumptions and broader socio-economic structures. Drawing on virtue ethics, the authors argue that if ZOAQ s are to genuinely facilitate pro-environmental behaviour change, they must reimagine the current focus of many conservation programs and embed virtues such as compassion, humility, honesty, and respect into all institutional practices, serving as moral role models. This includes critically engaging with food systems, one of the key drivers of loss of place. By embracing this transformative role, ZOAQ s can contribute to the structural and ethical changes required to counter species extinction and foster coexistence within the greater community of life.
Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel’s The War Against Animals, published in 2015, argues that human relations with the nonhuman other constitute a war, and must consequently be understood as such. In the ten years since the book’s publication, cultured meat has arisen as an alleged ethical and environmental victory, necessitating a critical attempt to reconcile its existence with Wadiwel’s thesis. This paper argues that, to understand cultured meat’s role in this war, one must first critique the concept overall, which is conducted through a comparison with Jean Baudrillard’s The Gulf War Did Not Take Place . Premised on the basis that Baudrillard’s work can help better accentuate the simulacrumatic elements of the war against animals, the paper ultimately argues that cultured meat does not resolve the war, but instead, moves the war against animals towards a more “virtual” stage. A more critical understanding of cultured meat, the war against animals writ large, and the terminology that is used, is essential to better diagnose cultured meat’s ethical implications for animals.
This qualitative study examines the public perception of the death of farmed animals that do not die in slaughterhouses and become visible in public, be it through media or art, deviations from the agricultural production system. In the first part, it is shown that the death of farmed animals due to neglect by farmers or to predacious attacks often cause a strong degree of empathetic suffering. In the second part, it is shown how the exposure of the death of farmed animals by artists is preferably ignored if the cruelties of slaughter are displayed and is met by aggressive reactions and accusations if it cannot be ignored. In such cases, reference is made to cultural values rather than to factual arguments. It is concluded that the two categories disturb the equilibrium in which we usually keep our cognitive dissonance of meat consumption, albeit in different ways.
Malaria contributes to poverty and illness, which further hinder productivity and income generation. Therefore, combating malaria is crucial for breaking the vicious cycle of poverty. Genome editing technologies, such as gene drives designed to suppress Anopheles gambiae mosquito populations, the vector for malaria, have emerged as potential tools in this fight. However, a significant ethical question arises: under what conditions is the use of gene drive technology to suppress Anopheles gambiae mosquito populations justified? This article argues that the Protective Precautionary Principle can serve as a suitable framework for morally assessing such cases. Within this framework, the use of gene drive technology for Anopheles gambiae population suppression would be permissible for laboratory research only. This limited scope minimizes the risk of unforeseen negative consequences, particularly for disadvantaged populations who may have fewer resources to protect themselves from such effects.
Assisted Reproductive Technologies ( ART s), such as artificial insemination ( AI ) and gene editing, offer promising solutions for addressing species extinction. These techniques have the potential to preserve endangered species and even revive extinct ones. However, conservation efforts centered on preventing species extinction may overlook an equally important concern: the well-being of individual animals. Here I offer an overview of ART in species conservation, with a particular focus on de-extinction cases, and then proceed to identify and evaluate the normative assumptions underlying conservation biology. Next, I critically examine key ethical issues related to balancing individual animal welfare with species conservation goals. I claim that concerns for individual welfare may lead us to reject many ART -based de-extinction interventions and consider a potential shift in conservation priorities. Finally, I explore two potential ways ART s could support welfare-driven conservation efforts.
Abstract While assisted reproduction is potentially beneficial for wild animals, it also raises significant ethical concerns. In this paper, we consider the welfare effects of assisted reproduction for individual wild animals, considering corals and pandas as case studies. Many (if not all) wild animals are welfare subjects who deserve moral consideration. We emphasize that human interventions in wild animals’ lives, even when made with good intentions, can often have unintended and undermining consequences.
Abstract This paper aims to identify the values and ethical issues at stake when assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) are used in animals for conservation purposes. We outline key concerns about individual animal welfare and lives, and the central conservation values that underpin and justify the use of ARTs for conservation purposes. We then discuss three questions that might help to guide ethical development and use of ARTs in a conservation context: Is the goal of the project involving ARTs for conservation well justified? Can the goal of the project be accomplished responsibly using ARTs? Is the project, and the use of ARTs in it, overall desirable? Decisions to use ARTs for conservation are ethically complex and not amenable to blanket ethical approval or disapproval; they will, instead, require detailed empirically and normatively grounded evaluation on a case-by-case basis, which can be guided by these questions.
