Interview, Fireside Chat
Dismantling the myth that we can't do anything to help wild animals | Cameron Meyer Shorb
- Estimates suggest 99% of sentient minds alive today are wild animals, with significant risks including struggle for food, exposure to extreme weather, and mortality from events like floods or wildfires, though some species may experience states ranging from neutral to positive, with rabbits potentially facing stress similar to commuting in difficult conditions while also experiencing periods of abundance.
- Future research aims to calculate total animal welfare in forestry options by identifying specific forest types that favor mammals, birds, or insects, with the expectation of making informed guesses about ecosystem flourishing or suffering and integrating these metrics into existing land management policies at scale.
- Interventions are expected to include fire management, prescribed burns, and the eradication of screwworms, alongside potential genetic modifications like gene drives to create disease immunity or pain tolerance, with initial strategies prioritizing benefits to humans to mitigate safety risks before expanding to welfare-focused applications.
- Specific welfare enhancement strategies may involve providing contraception to rodents to lower infant mortality while maintaining population size, creating novel ecosystems with higher net welfare, and eventually optimizing landscapes based on the highest welfare criteria, though zero suffering may remain unattainable due to conflicting interests.
- Measurement methodologies are projected to evolve beyond cortisol levels, which correlate more with arousal than affect, toward qualitative behavioral assessments and DNA methylation, with a long-term goal of using physical and behavioral indicators to reliably quantify welfare across species within three to five decades.
- Policy and governance structures are expected to shift toward incorporating wild animal welfare into conservation biology, with local to multilateral governments enacting regulations that require impact assessments during construction, increasing political representation for animals, and utilizing town and city scales for experimentation.
- The organizational landscape will likely see the Navigation Fund remaining active beyond 2026, a reliance on smaller donors for stability, and the emergence of private sector startups in biopharmaceuticals and mechanical engineering, driven by a need for interdisciplinary expertise in ecology, physiology, and animal behavior.
- Motivational approaches for the field are predicted to shift away from guilt and shame toward playful exploration and intellectual play, with the belief that active work is the best antidote to worry, while recognizing that most beneficial future actions will be concepts currently unimagined.
- Risks include potential unpredictable side effects to other animals and the environment, necessitating monitoring and mitigation, and the possibility that even with advanced knowledge, some interventions will only partially address the vast amounts of suffering identified, potentially leading to extreme scenarios where preventing existence is considered the most compassionate action.