Towards Improving the Ethics of Ecological Research

Abstract

We argue that the ecological research community should develop a plan for improving the ethical consistency and moral robustness of the field. We propose a particular ethics strategy—specifically, an ongoing process of collective ethical reflection that the community of ecological researchers, with the cooperation of applied ethicists and philosophers of biology, can use to address the needs we identify. We suggest a particular set of conceptual (in the form of six core values—freedom, fairness, well being, replacement, reduction, and refinement) and analytic (in the forms of decision theoretic software, 1000Minds) tools that, we argue, collectively have the resources to provide an empirically grounded and conceptually complete foundation for an ethics strategy for ecological research. We illustrate our argument with information gathered from a survey of ecologists conducted at the 2013 meeting of the Canadian Society of Ecology and Evolution.

Volunteer field technicians are bad for wildlife ecology

“…Tradition is not an excuse for bad behavior of any kind. Traditionally, scientists have eschewed ethical considerations of research (Rollin , Crozier et al ), purposefully excluded women and minorities (Lariviere et al , Cho et al ), and neglected basic field safety (Sasse , Gochfeld et al ); yet, we recognize that these practices are no longer appropriate. Failing to provide an adequate wage for project technicians may have been prevalent in the past, but is hardly justification for continuing to do so.…”

The ethical dimensions of wildlife disease management in an evolutionary context

“…The first part consists of six core values: freedom, fairness, wellbeing, replacement, reduction, and refinement (Table ). We have advocated elsewhere (Crozier and Schulte‐Hostedde ) that these six values are well suited for evaluating the ethical dimensions of EER, in general (i.e., beyond the more limited domain of ecologists specializing in wildlife disease management), and we argue here that they are also ideally suited for evaluating the ethical dimensions of wildlife management. The second part presents a decision tree to help identify the ethically salient dimensions of wildlife disease management and guide managers toward ethically responsible practices in complex situations.…”

Why Training in Ecological Research Must Incorporate Ethics Education

“…This study was recently threatened by a cougar ( Puma concolor ) that specialized on predating the sheep. Elsewhere, we have discussed an ethical dilemma faced by the research team, which had to decide whether to have the cougar shot to preserve the viability of the study . Since we first wrote about this case, we have learned that the predation suddenly stopped without any intervention by the ecologists, who assume that the cougar died.…”

“…To address this, we are working with the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution and economist Paul Hansen—who has codesigned the decision‐making theoretic survey tool 1000Minds—to develop a framework for a code of ethics for Canadian ecologists grounded on the values of their community . It is our hope and expectation that this code will serve as a catalyst for discussion within the ecological community, promoting fruitful interactions between ecologists and ethics scholars.…”

“…Elsewhere, we have discussed an ethical dilemma faced by the research team, which had to decide whether to have the cougar shot to preserve the viability of the study. 12 Since we first wrote about this case, we have learned that the predation suddenly stopped without any intervention by the ecologists, who assume that the cougar died. While this fortuitously absolved the researchers from making a decision about removing the cougar, it does not preclude us from speculating on what an ethical decision-making process might need to consider.…”