First off—you have my sympathies. That sounds terrible, and I understand his and your anger about this. Unfortunately, there are a great deal of problems in the world, so EA’s need to think carefully about where we should allocate our resources to do as much good as we can. Currently, you can save a life for around 3500-5500 USD, or for animals, focusing on factory farming can lead to tremendous gains (Animal Charity Evaluators estimates that lobbying for cage-free campaigns for hens can lead to multiple hen-years affected per dollar).
So, we need to consider how much it would cost to fix this problem. Building a better enclosure would cost a great deal of money, as would convincing the zoo to let the tiger be released and transported back to its home continent. I don’t know how much construction costs, but it definitely wouldn’t be in the four figures. I’d estimate six figures, minimum. Even if it were five figures, this is enough to save multiple human lives, or prevent tens of thousands of chickens living even more wretched lives.
I don’t want to trivialise the problem you’ve mentioned. It’s an injustice. However, this injustice is far from unique. Millions of people and animals are suffering right now, and since we cannot help them all, EA focuses on trying to help as many as we can.
This cause prioritisation is at the heart of the EA movement. If you’ve got questions, I’d be happy to answer them as best I can, whether here or via PM.
I upvoted both of the comments in this thread, because I empathised with Edward’s feelings of horror/sadness at the animal abuse they witnessed, and because I thought that Jay’s comment was a kind, honest, and full explanation of why Edward’s proposal was unlikely to be taken up by others on this Forum :) Thanks both.
Hi Edward,
First off—you have my sympathies. That sounds terrible, and I understand his and your anger about this. Unfortunately, there are a great deal of problems in the world, so EA’s need to think carefully about where we should allocate our resources to do as much good as we can. Currently, you can save a life for around 3500-5500 USD, or for animals, focusing on factory farming can lead to tremendous gains (Animal Charity Evaluators estimates that lobbying for cage-free campaigns for hens can lead to multiple hen-years affected per dollar).
So, we need to consider how much it would cost to fix this problem. Building a better enclosure would cost a great deal of money, as would convincing the zoo to let the tiger be released and transported back to its home continent. I don’t know how much construction costs, but it definitely wouldn’t be in the four figures. I’d estimate six figures, minimum. Even if it were five figures, this is enough to save multiple human lives, or prevent tens of thousands of chickens living even more wretched lives.
I don’t want to trivialise the problem you’ve mentioned. It’s an injustice. However, this injustice is far from unique. Millions of people and animals are suffering right now, and since we cannot help them all, EA focuses on trying to help as many as we can.
This cause prioritisation is at the heart of the EA movement. If you’ve got questions, I’d be happy to answer them as best I can, whether here or via PM.
I upvoted both of the comments in this thread, because I empathised with Edward’s feelings of horror/sadness at the animal abuse they witnessed, and because I thought that Jay’s comment was a kind, honest, and full explanation of why Edward’s proposal was unlikely to be taken up by others on this Forum :) Thanks both.