A Summary Of The Hunting Debate
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It does not help the cause of animal welfare to attribute rights to animals. If animals had rights then they could be neither killed nor eaten nor kept as pets. |
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Many of the questions posed by animal welfare have a moral aspect, and as such are not amenable to expert or scientific answer. For this and other reasons, 'Animal welfare science' is an imperfect guide to questions of wildlife management. |
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Definition: an animal is suffering if it has difficulty in coping with its environment. Suffering, so defined, is a matter of degree, and can take the form of pain, fear or distress. |
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Distress is distinct from stress: the latter may simply be a matter of exercise. |
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There are thresholds of pain and fear, and we must distinguish tolerable from intolerable pain. Pain is also suppressed under stress, by exercised-induced analgesia. |
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Animals have no premonition of death as we do; their fight and flight responses are part of a natural mechanism of avoidance. |
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Suffering is negative welfare. There is also positive welfare, meaning the extent to which an animal flourishes in accordance with its nature. |
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We must distinguish questions relating to the welfare of the individual animal from those relating to the population of which it is a part. Wildlife management is concerned primarily with the welfare of populations. |
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We must also distinguish the welfare of an animal at a specific moment (the moment prior to death, say) from its welfare over a life-time. |
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Welfare considerations applicable to domestic animals are often inappropriate to wild animals, and vice versa. The experience of being confined is traumatic for a wild animal, but not always for a pet. Anthropomorphic attitudes may be natural when relating to pets, but can be profoundly damaging when transferred to animals in the wild. |
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Populations of wild animals often have to be managed, for their good and for ours. This may involve a preparedness to cull. |
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When considering the welfare of wild animals we must consider both individuals and populations. But there is a question in each case of measurement. |
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Physiological methods provide an insecure measure of suffering: instead we should consider the duration of the suffering, and the extent of the associated impairment. |
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When computing the overall welfare enjoyed by an animal in its lifetime, we should employ a rough cost/benefit analysis, but guided by experience rather than by any pretended science. |
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Such a common sense calculation can be applied also to populations, but with an important proviso. Beyond a certain point suffering becomes unacceptable to the normal conscience, whatever the welfare benefits to other animals. This concept of 'unacceptable suffering' ought to be respected. |
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The Burns Inquiry argues that the experience of being chased and caught by hounds 'seriously compromises the welfare' of a fox. This does not mean that the suffering is unacceptable, or that it is not the inevitable price of a higher degree of welfare overall. Burns doubts that other culling methods are preferable from a welfare perspective. |
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In discussing hunting we should make comparative judgements. For example we should compare hunting with the keeping of cats, from the point of view of the suffering inflicted on wildlife. And we should compare hunting with other regimes of management, including laissez faire. Hunting comes out well from the view of overall welfare of the quarry. |
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In fact the attacks on hunting do not really concern welfare, as the example of cats demonstrates. They concern cruelty. |
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Cruelty does not mean causing suffering; it means causing suffering gratuitously , as in bear baiting, or through indifference. |
Hunting would be reprehensible on grounds of cruelty if the followers took part in order to enjoy the suffering and death of the quarry. But they have no part in this, which is the work of the hounds. Their enjoyment should be compared with that of the falconer, enjoying the work of his bird.