Ekho
from ekho

Wild Animal Suffering

“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat... and a little child shall lead them". Isaiah 11:6

They are the majority of the world - as far as we know. They have no protection whatsoever, living in a system that is indifferent to their plight. They are suffering in ways modern humans have forgotten - eaten alive by parasites, wounded for days trying to survive. No painkillers, no surgery, no police, no doctor, no child services. No hot showers. If you want to reduce suffering in the world, you cannot ignore the sheer screaming importance of wild animal suffering. just like you would not ignore a scream in the jungle while traveling, if you knew you could help. Why is this being screaming? what imagined group does he belong to? it doesn't matter. Alleviating his suffering does.

Wild animals suffer from parasitism, hunger, cold, predation, fear, injury, and severe pain, the very extremely negative experiences that civilization was build to prevent. If they were human animals, their environment will be viewed as a total system collapse, widespread famine, ravage violence, and a void of all the basic faculties and services that "decent" humans should have. We find it outrageous if the system doesn't come to our rescue when we are in danger of violence, but in nature, this is extremely common or the default (though some animal species have partial community protection).

But should we play god? We already are. Not playing the game your already dominating is fleeing your response ability. Yes, Nature is complex, we don't really know the consequences of our actions, but this is true for spaying cats as well. Researchers and advocates in this space are not saying lets redesign nature now, but rather learn, research and develop the vision for welfare biology. Future humans and AIs, with even more god powers, will be able to do much more to help wild animals.

Does nature need any intervening in the first place? Don't fall for David Attenborough style romanticizing of nature, it is cruel, but also don't fall for the negative utilitarian "life for wild animals are so miserable they are not worth living" conclusion. What is Natures nature? we don't know. That is, imo, the only responsible answer. But the fact that there is a lot of very intense suffering mean we need to try to help anyway, observing nature like Ekho, having seen many other natural habitats, not enchanted by this one in particular. Not falling for the appeal to nature fallacy, not quick to dismiss the complex experiences of different beings we know little about as suffering dominant life.