Animal welfare is an important topic that we want to cover better on OWID. The first step will be to publish more and better content on it. We plan to make significant steps toward this over the summer (stay tuned!).
However, this new content will likely focus on factory farming and related questions. I see the question of wild animal welfare as one on the edge of research, even by EA standards. In other words, more and more people are interested in it, but there’s no consensus that it constitutes one of the world’s largest problems. In many ways, from an outside (non-EA) perspective, it’s not so different from longtermism or digital sentience: something most people have never even considered as an issue, but that could become one over the next few years or decades.
Because of that, I could imagine us one day writing about the general idea of wild animal welfare, the philosophical arguments behind it, why some researchers study it, and what the numbers are. This would allow us to introduce more people to it as an “interesting angle” to add to their worldview. This could look like Max Roser’s article “The future is vast – what does this mean for our own life?”.
In other words, more and more people are interested in it [wild animal welfare], but there’s no consensus that it constitutes one of the world’s largest problems.
With “largest”, are you referring to importance, or pressingness (i.e. importance, tractability and neglectedness)? I agree it is unclear whether it is super pressing (although I wouldsaythesame for global health and development, and farmed animal welfare), but think there is consensus within EA that the scale is huge.
Because of that, I could imagine us one day writing about the general idea of wild animal welfare, the philosophical arguments behind it, why some researchers study it, and what the numbers are. This would allow us to introduce more people to it as an “interesting angle” to add to their worldview. This could look like Max Roser’s article “The future is vast – what does this mean for our own life?”.
That would be great! Then you could potentially link to it in your articles about conservation to introduce some nuance.
Thanks for the question, Vasco!
Animal welfare is an important topic that we want to cover better on OWID. The first step will be to publish more and better content on it. We plan to make significant steps toward this over the summer (stay tuned!).
However, this new content will likely focus on factory farming and related questions. I see the question of wild animal welfare as one on the edge of research, even by EA standards. In other words, more and more people are interested in it, but there’s no consensus that it constitutes one of the world’s largest problems. In many ways, from an outside (non-EA) perspective, it’s not so different from longtermism or digital sentience: something most people have never even considered as an issue, but that could become one over the next few years or decades.
Because of that, I could imagine us one day writing about the general idea of wild animal welfare, the philosophical arguments behind it, why some researchers study it, and what the numbers are. This would allow us to introduce more people to it as an “interesting angle” to add to their worldview. This could look like Max Roser’s article “The future is vast – what does this mean for our own life?”.
Thanks for the reply, Ed!
Nice to know! OWID has been one of my go to sources on factory farming. Some suggestions (just in the unlikely case you have not considered them):
Conditions of animals (e.g. fraction of animals of each species being factory-farmed, and fraction of factory-farmed animals which are in cages).
Success of welfare reforms (e.g. cage-free campaigns).
Opinion polls on factory-farming.
More animal species (e.g. shrimp and crustaceans), namely the ones covered here.
Data about time in various types of pain from the Welfare Footprint Project.
With “largest”, are you referring to importance, or pressingness (i.e. importance, tractability and neglectedness)? I agree it is unclear whether it is super pressing (although I would say the same for global health and development, and farmed animal welfare), but think there is consensus within EA that the scale is huge.
That would be great! Then you could potentially link to it in your articles about conservation to introduce some nuance.