Iām looking at this from a single angle: factory farming. My personal moral philosophy places a much greater degree of emphasis on intense suffering than on widespread suffering ā in other words, five individualsā each experiencing a (hypothetically quantifiable) utility of negative one thousand is far worse than one thousand individualsā each experiencing a utility of negative five. From this perspective, wild-animal suffering is essentially negligible in comparison to domestic-animal suffering ā human impact on wild animals consists mostly of relatively quick deaths, whereas factory-farmed animals spend their entire lives in horrifically inhumane conditions.
I think intense suffering is not that uncommon among wild animals, particularly leading up to death. I wouldnāt be surprised if wild mammals and birds have far worse deaths than farmed mammals and birds on average, because farmed mammals and birds are often stunned during slaughter. Of course, many farmed animals (and especially those other than mammals and birds) die on farms before slaughter or arenāt stunned (or stunned properly) for slaughter.
For example, being swallowed live is a common way for wild aquatic animals to die, and that probably usually involves suffocating and burning in gastric juices over several minutes, at least for prey fish. Itās probably the suffocation that kills them. The fisheries scientist Gerald Waterfield (2021) wrote:
My best estimate of the time that the consumed fish stays alive is from about 15 to 25 minutes, after which the fish dies from lack of oxygen. This process starts as soon as the fish enters the predatorās throat. It happens a little slower at lower temperatures. Even if the prey fish were regurgitated a few minutes fewer than this time, it probably would still expire due to brain damage from the restricted oxygen intake and it would be blinded by its eyes having been greatly damaged from stomach acid.
Furthermore, an aquatic animal can have hundreds or thousands of offspring, the vast majority of which die within days of being born, often due to predation.
I imagine many factory farmed animals suffer ādisabling painā basically daily throughout their lives, and this is quite intense each time, while wild animals are more likely than farmed animals to suffer āexcruciating painā, which is even more intense, over the seconds or minutes before dying. This is borrowing the pain intensity categories from WFP and based on their analyses for farmed egg-laying hens and farmed meat chickens.
I can see how my use of the word āintenseā was imprecise (the part about utility was likely worded better; I guess I didnāt want to open with utilitarian jargon that I probably donāt fully understand myself), but I still think domestic-animal suffering is much worse than wild-animal suffering, because death is only a small portion of overall suffering. Being eaten alive is obviously very unpleasant, but at least itās over relatively quickly. The same canāt be said for the lives of factory-farmed animals.
To be more open about where Iām coming from, my level of horror at suffering relies heavily on to what extent I think I could deal with it myself. Minutes of excruciating pain is something Iāve personally experienced, whereas intense (even if not excruciating) pain on a continuous basis over the course of months or years is something I canāt even really imagine.
I think intense suffering is not that uncommon among wild animals, particularly leading up to death. I wouldnāt be surprised if wild mammals and birds have far worse deaths than farmed mammals and birds on average, because farmed mammals and birds are often stunned during slaughter. Of course, many farmed animals (and especially those other than mammals and birds) die on farms before slaughter or arenāt stunned (or stunned properly) for slaughter.
For example, being swallowed live is a common way for wild aquatic animals to die, and that probably usually involves suffocating and burning in gastric juices over several minutes, at least for prey fish. Itās probably the suffocation that kills them. The fisheries scientist Gerald Waterfield (2021) wrote:
Furthermore, an aquatic animal can have hundreds or thousands of offspring, the vast majority of which die within days of being born, often due to predation.
I imagine many factory farmed animals suffer ādisabling painā basically daily throughout their lives, and this is quite intense each time, while wild animals are more likely than farmed animals to suffer āexcruciating painā, which is even more intense, over the seconds or minutes before dying. This is borrowing the pain intensity categories from WFP and based on their analyses for farmed egg-laying hens and farmed meat chickens.
I can see how my use of the word āintenseā was imprecise (the part about utility was likely worded better; I guess I didnāt want to open with utilitarian jargon that I probably donāt fully understand myself), but I still think domestic-animal suffering is much worse than wild-animal suffering, because death is only a small portion of overall suffering. Being eaten alive is obviously very unpleasant, but at least itās over relatively quickly. The same canāt be said for the lives of factory-farmed animals.
To be more open about where Iām coming from, my level of horror at suffering relies heavily on to what extent I think I could deal with it myself. Minutes of excruciating pain is something Iāve personally experienced, whereas intense (even if not excruciating) pain on a continuous basis over the course of months or years is something I canāt even really imagine.