EA is still not yet “correct enough” about wild animal welfare—too little attention and resources relatively and absolutely.
I’m very sympathic to the view that wild animal suffering is a huge deal, and that a mature and moral civilization would solve this problem. However, I also find “Why I No Longer Prioritize Wild Animal Welfare” convincing. The conclusion of that post:
After looking into these topics, I now tentatively think that WAW [wild animal welfare] is not a very promising EA cause because:
In the short-term (the next ten years), WAW interventions we could pursue to help wild animals now seem less cost-effective than farmed animal interventions.
In the medium-term (10-300 years), trying to influence governments to do WAW work seems similarly speculative to other longtermist work but far less important.
In the long-term, WAW seems important but not nearly as important as preventing x-risks and perhaps some other work.
I’m very sympathic to the view that wild animal suffering is a huge deal, and that a mature and moral civilization would solve this problem. However, I also find “Why I No Longer Prioritize Wild Animal Welfare” convincing. The conclusion of that post: