The ethical dimensions of wildlife disease management in an evolutionary context

Abstract

Best practices in wildlife disease management require robust evolutionary ecological research (EER). This means not only basing management decisions on evolutionarily sound reasoning, but also conducting management in a way that actively contributes to the on-going development of that research. Because good management requires good science, and good science is ‘good’ science (i.e., effective science is often science conducted ethically), good management therefore also requires practices that accord with sound ethical reasoning. To that end, we propose a two-part framework to assist decision makers to identify ethical pitfalls of wildlife disease management. The first part consists of six values – freedom, fairness, well-being, replacement, reduction, and refinement; these values, developed for the ethical evaluation of EER practices, are also well suited for evaluating the ethics of wildlife disease management. The second part consists of a decision tree to help identify the ethically salient dimensions of wildlife disease management and to guide managers toward ethically responsible practices in complex situations. While ethical reasoning cannot be used to deduce from first principles what practices should be undertaken in every given set of circumstances, it can establish parameters that bound what sorts of practices will be acceptable or unacceptable in certain types of scenarios.

Wildlife parasites in a One Health world

“…In the following section we use the example of toxoplasmosis in wildlife in the Arctic to propose a set of questions to help communities, researchers, and policymakers prioritize wildlife parasites from a One Health perspective. These guiding questions were modified from those proposed by other authors [22] to assist decisionmakers in wildlife disease management and evolutionary ecological research (Box 1).…”

“…Below are three guiding questions to determine whether a wildlife parasite should be prioritized for action from a One Health perspective, modified from those proposed in [22]. Sub-questions may need to be answered to address the guiding question.…”

“…An effective management strategy for parasites of One Health significance in wildlife populations important for harvest requires community acceptance and action. This is greatly facilitated when communities are part of the decision-making as early in the process as possible, and when communities perceive a benefit in implementing practices that reduce disease transmission -a 'win-win' outcome for wildlife conservation and human health [22]. A win-win outcome in our example could involve offering a carcass-side test for T. gondii in harvested wildlife, such as the walrus-testing program for trichinellosis in Nunavik [60], which allows community members to make informed decisions about food consumption (species and organs), method of food preparation, and disposal of carcasses in a manner that does not facilitate transmission of the parasite.…”

Why Training in Ecological Research Must Incorporate Ethics Education

“…Ecology is the branch of biology devoted to the relationships among organisms in the wild and between organisms and their environments. Ecological research scientists work in universities, governments, nonprofit organizations, and industry, and they study a broad range of topics, including, for example, the population dynamics of other‐than‐human organisms, including endangered species; the impact of industrial pollutants on wild populations; and the evolution and dispersal of wildlife diseases, including diseases that are transmissible to humans (zoonoses) . When we use the term “ecologists” in this essay, we refer specifically to scientists in the field of ecological research rather than to forest or wildlife managers, environmental policy‐makers, conservationists, environmentalists, and so on (although members of these groups overlap and their work is interrelated).…”

No evidence of handling‐induced mortality in Serengeti's African wild dog population

“…The implications of this hypothesis extend beyond wild dogs in the Serengeti; not only was immobilization of wildlife periodically suspended in certain countries immediately thereafter, but also the notion of researcher‐induced extinction continues in the scientific literature (Crozier & Schulte‐Hostedde, ; Vander Wal, Garant, & Pelletier, ). More recently, Burrows () attributed wild dog population declines in two southern African populations to researcher intervention, thereby perpetuating the validity of the original hypothesis.…”