from ekho
Why is it so Important?
The Sheer number of wild animals vs farm animals
"Wild animal welfare is way less tractable than many cause areas. But I think that's outweighed by the scale: humanity, factory farmed animals, and other captive animals collectively make up only 0.1% of vertebrates. The other 99.9% of moral patients alive today are wild animals (or more, if you count invertebrates)". (source)
— Cameron Meyer Shorb, Wild Animal Initiative
Free animals, suffering form natural causes, in their natural habitats, is probably the biggest source of suffering on your planet.
Timescale look:
- When looking at a problem, one of the most important factors is timescale.
- Experiences on Earth probably date back at least half a billion years, to early vertebrates, and may go much further back. Animal agriculture has existed for only about 10,000 years, and factory farming is less than 100 years old.
- With humanity's exceeding capabilities, I think there is at least a decent chance that in 400 years, perhaps even this century, there will be almost no factory farms left on earth. It makes sense from a technological standpoint, as more efficient methods, like cultured meat, will be developed and commercialized.
- But the problem of suffering experiences in the wild has existed for as long as there has been experience in the wild. Will it still exist in its enormity a million years from now?