Articles by Jason D Scorse

Even conservationists can’t escape animal welfare issues

A fascinating article in the NYT on elephants in Africa makes clear that the treatment of elephants has serious consequences for how they behave toward humans and greatly complicates conservation measures. Advanced mammals such as these share too many social and emotional traits with us for us to believe that their survival is merely a matter of biology, habitat, and the physical sciences. An environmentalism that ignores issues of animal welfare is not only profoundly myopic, but is bound to fail at even its core mission of conservation.

UPDATE: I'm not sure what the occasion is, but there's another article in the NYT today about animal intelligence that is definitely worth a read.

We are entering an age in which we are going to be confronted with the fact that many of the traits we thought were unique to us are not, and this will force us to reevaluate our attitude towards animals in very profound ways.

A show about it

Check out this amazing show on Wildaid, which is trying to curb the illegal wildlife trade. It may change your views on a few things.

Here's the Wildaid website.

Animal welfare, that is

California governor signs major animal-welfare legislation. If we care this much about dogs, and reflect it in our legal system, it is obvious that moral consistency dictates we extend this consideration to many other animals. I think environmentalists should be among those leading this effort.

The state of play on the animal welfare question

I think it's about time to put the issue of environmentalism and animal welfare aside for the time being. It is definitely worth returning to in the future. Thank you all for your excellent comments, especially the people who disagree with me; preaching to the choir is always a waste of time. So here are what I see as the key points that came out of this weeks-long discussion: