Culling via anticoagulant poisons is a widespread cause of intense, prolonged suffering for wild rodents. Replacing lethal control with fertility control has the potential to be a highly scalable way to reduce wild animal suffering with minimal ecological risk.
I worry the effects on non-target animals may well be larger than those on the rodents. I estimated electrically stunning farmed shrimp changes the welfare of soil animals more than it increases the welfare of shrimps if it results in the replacement of more than 0.0374 % of the consumption of the affected farmed shrimp by farmed fish, and individual animal welfare per fully-healthy-animal-year is proportional to “number of neurons”^0.5. I can easily see this happening for even a slight increase in the cost of shrimp.
Thanks for the post, Cam and Cat.
I worry the effects on non-target animals may well be larger than those on the rodents. I estimated electrically stunning farmed shrimp changes the welfare of soil animals more than it increases the welfare of shrimps if it results in the replacement of more than 0.0374 % of the consumption of the affected farmed shrimp by farmed fish, and individual animal welfare per fully-healthy-animal-year is proportional to “number of neurons”^0.5. I can easily see this happening for even a slight increase in the cost of shrimp.