being as overwhelmingly correct about something as EA is on animal welfare.
I identify with the EA animal welfare cause area, and I believe I can claim to “come from” the farmed animal side of EA animal welfare. And I have to say that EA is still not yet “correct enough” about wild animal welfare—too little attention and resources relatively and absolutely.
But also, to be fair, EA is already one of the rare communities in the world, if not the THE community, that cares the most about wild animal welfare. So maybe EA is still more correct (or less wrong) than most others when it comes to wild animal welfare.
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’ve long had animal welfare, especially wild animal welfare, as one priority in EA, among others. I also has a background of being involved in animal welfare and environmental movements independent of EA. My experience is that more environmentalists tend to be at least mildly more conscientious about wild animal welfare than the typical animal welfarist.
That doesn’t mean that the typical environmentalist cares more about wild animal welfare than the typical animal welfarist. Typically, both such kinds of people tend not to care much about wild animal welfare at all.
I’ve met more abolitionists who haven’t thought of the welfare of wild animals much, but have quickly had a more intuitive sympathy for the cause, than I’ve met environmentalists who are conscientious about the plight of animal species other than those just commonly recognized for how endangered they are (e.g., panda bears and other charismatic megafauna). Yet environmentalism seems to lend itself to a certain ecological consciousness such that I’ve met more environmentalists than abolitionists who validate the cause of wild animal welfare, in spite of the fact those environmentalists are not otherwise anti-speciesists.
I identify with the EA animal welfare cause area, and I believe I can claim to “come from” the farmed animal side of EA animal welfare. And I have to say that EA is still not yet “correct enough” about wild animal welfare—too little attention and resources relatively and absolutely.
But also, to be fair, EA is already one of the rare communities in the world, if not the THE community, that cares the most about wild animal welfare. So maybe EA is still more correct (or less wrong) than most others when it comes to wild animal welfare.
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:
I’ve long had animal welfare, especially wild animal welfare, as one priority in EA, among others. I also has a background of being involved in animal welfare and environmental movements independent of EA. My experience is that more environmentalists tend to be at least mildly more conscientious about wild animal welfare than the typical animal welfarist.
That doesn’t mean that the typical environmentalist cares more about wild animal welfare than the typical animal welfarist. Typically, both such kinds of people tend not to care much about wild animal welfare at all.
I’ve met more abolitionists who haven’t thought of the welfare of wild animals much, but have quickly had a more intuitive sympathy for the cause, than I’ve met environmentalists who are conscientious about the plight of animal species other than those just commonly recognized for how endangered they are (e.g., panda bears and other charismatic megafauna). Yet environmentalism seems to lend itself to a certain ecological consciousness such that I’ve met more environmentalists than abolitionists who validate the cause of wild animal welfare, in spite of the fact those environmentalists are not otherwise anti-speciesists.