Talk:Wild animal suffering/Archive 1

Archive 1

• Disclosure: I am affiliated with an animal rights think tank called Sentience Politics. I'm not actually getting paid for my contributions to this page – I'm just interested in the topic in general. However, a Wiki moderator alerted me that I should disclose my affiliation to this group. Adrianrorheim (talk) 16:20, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Wow, this is kind of a big deal, since you've been advocating to keep several pages associated with that organization. It's also a problem that you removed both the deletion and cleanup tags on this article, despite not making significant improvements. I'm going to put a cleanup tag back on, though I still lean toward deletion.Lrieber (talk) 23:58, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure what you mean – I haven't removed any tags on this article. The deletion tag was removed by a mod, and there was no cleanup tag until you added one just now. The majority of my work on this article has been to remove content that's either unnecessary or in violation of WP policies. Regarding the COI statement: I'm interested in these topics and think they are important, which is why I'm involved in the organization in the first place. In any case, if you have any specific concerns, I'll be happy to discuss them on my talk page. Adrianrorheim (talk) 18:49, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
      • Okay, my mistake, I thought you had removed the tags. Lrieber (talk) 01:53, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Please include more sources on pain in animals

Right now, this article focuses heavily on the philosophical and ecological aspects to wild animal suffering. It would be great if users could also include some relevant info about the neurological evidence of pain in animals, since "but animals don't feel pain!" seems to be a common objection to the idea of wild animal suffering. The following pages should provide ample material:

• Pain in animals
• Pain in invertebrates
• Pain in amphibians
• Pain in cephalopods
• Pain in crustaceans
• Pain in fish

I think that a small section summarizing relevant info from these articles, as well as links to the articles themselves, should be sufficient. Thanks! Adrianrorheim (talk) 15:10, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Further information on R-Selection + Image

It seems to me that the central issue of r-selection for wild animal suffering is still neglected in the article. If you do not object, I would like to add one or two additional sentences on this matter. And I would like to add the picture of the mouse that is being used in the r-selection article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory#r-selection What do you think about this? --Homo.deus (talk) 17:01, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Richard Dawkins Quote on wild animal suffering

There is a great quote from Richard Dawkins on wild animal suffering (see here I believe it would be nice to include this quote in the article. Do you agree? Where would it fit best? "The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored." Homo.deus --Homo.deus (talk) 08:53, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I have now added the quote in the "Extent of suffering in nature" section. I believe it fits well. --Homo.deus (talk) 17:10, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Tags

Neither of the tags seem sensible to me. Please add more specificity about what has undue weight and what views are being synthesized or are not attributable to original sources. K.Bog 07:24, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

@Kbog: My main concern was the overreliance on primary sources and focus on relatively fringe views. Primary sources are sometimes acceptable, but I believe you need to establish notability of the content using independent secondary and tertiary sources. Correct me if I am misinterpreting Wikipedia guidelines. GojiBarry (talk) 02:51, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

@GojiBarry: The relevant tags are Template:Primary sources and Template:Notability. Undue weight is not about the length or level of detail of an article, it's about the relative weight given to viewpoints within the article, and as far as I can tell the viewpoints here are given weight in accordance with the prevalence and content of reliable sources on the subject. I don't see any of it as WP:FRINGE - most of the views here are provided by mainstream individuals in the fields of biology and ethics, and there aren't reliable sources calling them fringe or pseudoscientific. WP:FRINGE doesn't say much on this, but it appears to be very much about scientific and historical claims, not ethical ones, so I don't know if it can even apply. Sure most people in the field probably don't have the views of the people cited in this article, but that's not sufficient for WP:FRINGE: you could just as easily say that, e.g., Moral particularism falls under fringe because most people in the field reject it. As for sourcing, most of these are journal articles used as primary sources, but that's frequent for academic topics on Wikipedia. The journal articles commonly discuss similar work in the field including each other. We could use them as secondary sources explaining each other's views, which would technically be better according to WikiPolicy naively construed, but I doubt that the article quality would be better. I'm not really sure what ought to be done here - I wouldn't go to, say, Marxism and object to how heavily the article is sourcing statements from Marx's writings, and so on. I'll try to find more secondary sources, but it's probably not going to get much better (in which case the right thing to do would be to list it for deletion and see if it's good enough to stay in its current form, rather than allowing it to wallow with cleanup tags). Finally, WP:SYNTH is about reaching editorial conclusions or implications, but this article has clearly separated distinct views on wild animal suffering. K.Bog 08:54, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't have access to all the sources, but as of the current revision (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wild_animal_suffering&oldid=786740304) there are at least ten secondary sources: 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 18b, 36, 42, 19c, 46. K.Bog 09:58, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Okay, I'm satisfied with this response and retract the tags. GojiBarry (talk) 02:54, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Henry Stephens Salt quote misattribution.

Not sure if this warrants a new section (new here), but the quote towards the end of the "History of concern" section, which goes "We are unable to give life, and therefore ought not to take it away from the meanest insect without sufficient reason.'" references the following paper by Henry Stephens Salt, Animals' RightsAnimals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress, and the quote is attributed to him. However, if one checks the source, the quote is attributed by Salt to Soame Jenyns. I'm not sure if this breaks Wiki convention, but it doesn't seem right. (Yonatanzelnik (talk) 15:37, 23 January 2019 (UTC))

Forgot to say, I amended this. Throughthemind (talk) 16:19, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

History of concern for wild animals

I've added some extra historical quotes. It does seem like the section might be a little long now though and there might be too many quotes to be readable. Let me know what you think Throughthemind (talk) 16:04, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Remake the summary

 There have been new sections created on the French article "Souffrance chez les animaux sauvages" (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Souffrance_chez_les_animaux_sauvages), which are "Analogy with colonialism", "Sovereignty in nature and Oscar Horta's responses", "rarefy wildlife", "Active assistance", "Sure interventions", "The case for predation".

 Furthermore, I think the summary of the French page is better :

1 - extent of suffering in nature 2 - historical approach 3 - Arguments for intervention 4 - Criticism for intervention 5 - Praticing interventionnism

 This plan allows us not to repeat, and it is clearer for public to distinguish theorical arguments, the two sides of the debate, and finally what would be interventionnism concretly.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Antonyme Figure (talk • contribs) 21:15, 11 December 2020 (UTC) 

Section about the risk of spreading wild animal suffering beyond Earth

I propose adding the following section to the article as suggested in Talk:Space_colonization#Mention_for_the_Risk_of_Spreading_WAS_via_Space_Colonization. Please let me know if you have objections or suggestions.

Future prospects -> Risks -> Spreading wild animal suffering beyond Earth

Several researchers and non-profit organizations have raised concern that human civilization may cause wild animal suffering outside Earth. For example, wild habitats may be created - or allowed to happen - on extraterrestrial colonies like terraformed planets. Another example of a potential realization of the risk is directed panspermia where the initial microbial population eventually evolves into sentient organisms.

References

ObjectiveSubjectivity (talk) 20:19, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for suggesting this new section; no objections from me. You could potentially include suffering risks in the paragraph. Throughthemind (talk) 20:51, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Good idea, as spreading wild-animal suffering beyond Earth is indeed an s-risk, I think. Thank you. ObjectiveSubjectivity (talk) 16:28, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

I added the proposed section, w/ mentioning suffering risk as suggested by Throughthemind. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ObjectiveSubjectivity (talk • contribs)

MrOllie seems to have removed the section, noting "fringe concern." I have undone this edit because, like the two users above, I think this section is worthwhile. I wanted to raise this concern here if anyone would like to discuss. Jmill1806 (talk) 17:31, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

New section under Extent of suffering in nature

It would be good to have a section titled "Measuring wild animal welfare". Here's a couple of relevant articles: [1][2] Throughthemind (talk) 13:46, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

It would also be good to have a section on rewilding and its effect on wild animal suffering. Throughthemind (talk) 09:32, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

As well as a section on pain in animals. Throughthemind (talk) 09:33, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Critics?

I recently came across an old book "The Problem of Pain in Nature" [1] that seems to downplay the idea of wild animals experiencing pain. The book was reviewed in the Nature journal [2], the author seemed to be denying that much pain exists in nature. In one chapter he also talks about how various animals and insects avoid suffering by hibernating, interestingly the article does not mention hibernation. On the article there is not much mention of pain. I understand we have another article pain in animals but the section on this article "Killing by other animals" does not mention pain. I do not personally believe what the author of this old book is claiming, but he appears to be a critic of the idea of wild animal suffering. Do any modern environmentalists or philosophers actually dispute the idea of wild animal suffering or downplay its importance? Psychologist Guy (talk) 02:23, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Good find and interesting topic. Personally, I don't think that is a criticism of "wild animal suffering" as this page lays it out, but conceptually it could be included under Wild_animal_suffering#Nature_as_idyllic or just Wild_animal_suffering#Arguments_against_intervention. I wouldn't want this WAS page to include much detail on the topic of pain in animals, which is more about the internal phenomena of an animal, but the examples you mention of hibernation is a more external, behavioral, "wild" phenomenon, so I think it could be added if you would like. Jmill1806 (talk)

Eng

Wild animals Suffering by humans with pictures 59.91.147.245 (talk) 13:11, 1 August 2023 (UTC)