Predation problem

Consideration of predation as a moral problem

A snowy owl carries a killed American black duck

The predation problem or predation argument refers to the consideration of the harms experienced by animals due to predation as a moral problem, that humans may or may not have an obligation to work towards preventing. Discourse on this topic has, by and large, been held within the disciplines of animal and environmental ethics. The issue has particularly been discussed in relation to animal rights and wild animal suffering. Some critics have considered an obligation to prevent predation as untenable or absurd and have used the position as a reductio ad absurdum to reject the concept of animal rights altogether.[1][2] Others have criticized any obligation implied by the animal rights position as environmentally harmful.[3]

Responses from animal ethicists and rights advocates have been varied. Some have rejected the claim that animal rights as a position implies that we are obligated to prevent predation,[4][5] while others have argued that the animal rights position does imply that predation is something that we should try to avert.[6] Others have asserted that it is not something that we should do anything about now due to the risk that we could inadvertently cause significant harm, but that it is something that we may be able to effectively take action on in the future with improved knowledge and technologies.[7]

## Historical views

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### Problem of evil

[edit]

See also: Problem of evil § Problem of evil and animal suffering, and Evolutionary theodicy

Predation has historically been viewed as a natural evil within the context of the problem of evil and has been considered a moral concern for Christians who have engaged with theodicy.[8][9][10] Natural evils have been sometimes thought of as something that humans should work towards alleviating, or as part of a greater good which justifies the existence of this type of evil.[11] Thomas Aquinas advocated the latter view, arguing that "defects" in nature such as predation led to the "good of another, or even to the universal good" and that if "all evil were prevented, much good would be absent from the universe".[12] Within Christian and Hebrew Scripture, there are several prophecies which describe a future Heaven or Earth where predation is no longer a feature of nature,[13] including Isaiah's prophecy that "[t]he wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them."[14]

In his notebooks (written between 1487 and 1505), Leonardo da Vinci suggested that natural suffering and death, including plagues and predation, are necessary for maintaining balance and renewal in the world, even if they seem unjust or cruel.[15] David Hume made several observations about predation and suffering experienced by wild animals in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), stating that the "stronger prey upon the weaker, and keep them in perpetual terror and anxiety".[16]

William Paley, in Natural Theology, described predation as being the most challenging of God's work to establish the utility of,[17] nevertheless, he defended predation as the means to deal with the potentially catastrophic effects of animals producing more offspring than can possibly survive.[18]

The debate around predation and the problem of evil was significantly increased by the popularization of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection.[19] Some earlier Christians argued that violence in nature was a result of the fall of man, but evidence that predation has existed for millions of years before the evolution of humans and the concept of sin, indicates that while life has existed, there has never been a time where nature has been free from violence.[20] Darwin himself questioned how the fact that the Ichneumonidae prey on the bodies of living caterpillars could be reconciled with the idea of an omnibenevolent God.[21]

### Criticism of moral judgements towards predatory animals

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Plutarch criticised the labelling of carnivorous animals such as lions, tigers and snakes as barbarous because for them killing is a necessity while for humans who can live off of "nature's beneficent fruits" killing is a "luxury and crime".[22]

The writer Edward Augustus Kendall discussed predation in his book of moral fables The Canary Bird (1799), in which he argued that predatory behavior by animals should not be judged by human moral standards and that "a prejudice against particular creatures, for fancied acts of cruelty is absurd".[23]

### Philosophical pessimism

[edit]

Giacomo Leopardi, the Italian poet and philosopher, in Operette morali (1827) engaged in a dialogue with Nature in "Dialogue between Nature and an Icelander", which uses the inevitability of predation—such as a squirrel fleeing from a rattlesnake, only to run into the snake's open mouth—as a moral indictment on nature's cannibalism of its own offspring. The inevitability of such cycles of destruction and creation was a cause for Leopardi's philosophical pessimism. In Zibaldone, published posthumously in 1898, Leopardi argued that predation is the ultimate indication of the evil design of nature.[24]

Similar to Leopardi, the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, in 1851, used the pain experienced by an animal being devoured by another as a refutation against the idea that the "pleasure in the world outweighs the pain".[25]

### Animal rights

[edit]

Lewis Gompertz, an early animal rights advocate, and one of the first contemporary authors to address the problem of wild animal suffering, in the fifth chapter of his 1824 book Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes, engaged in a dialogue, in which he asserted that animals devouring each other can be judged as wrong by the rules that we use to govern human lives and stated that "should I witness the attempt in any animal of destroying another, I would endeavour to frustrate it; though this might probably be wrong." He went on to argue that the extinction of carnivorous species would not be bad, claiming that the species of one animal is not more important than an equal number of another and that it would be possible for some carnivorous animals, like wolves, to instead sustain themselves on vegetables.[26]

The American zoologist and animal rights philosopher J. Howard Moore in the pamphlet Why I Am a Vegetarian, published in 1895, described the carnivora as "relentless brutes", whose existence is a travesty for ethics, justice and mercy.[27] In Better-World Philosophy (1899), Moore argued that carnivorousness was the result of excessive egoism, a product of natural selection, stating "Life riots on life—tooth and talon, beak and paw".[28]: 123–125  He went on to claim that the irredeemable nature of carnivorous species meant that they could not be reconciled with each other in his ideal arrangement of the universe, which he called a "Confederation of the Consciousnesses".[28]: 161–163  In The New Ethics (1907), Moore labelled carnivorous species as "criminal" races whose "existence is a continual menace to the peace and well-being of the world" because the "fullness of their lives is dependent upon the emptiness and destruction of others".[29]

In 1903, the Scottish philosopher David G. Ritchie in response to Henry S. Salt's 1892 book Animals' Rights, claimed that giving animals rights would imply that we must "protect the weak among them against the strong" and to achieve this, carnivorous animals should be put to death or slowly starved by "permanent captivity and vegetarian diet". He considered this proposal absurd, stating that the "declaration of the rights of every creeping thing [is] to remain a mere hypocritical formula to gratify pug-loving sentimentalists".[30]

## Contemporary views

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### Animal ethics

[edit]

In 1973, Australian philosopher Peter Singer argued that if humans were to try to prevent predation, such as from stopping lions killing gazelles, that it would likely increase the "net amount of animal suffering", but asserted that if hypothetically we could reduce suffering in the long-term, then it would be right to intervene.[31]

The English philosopher Stephen R. L. Clark's "The Rights of Wild Things" (1979) is considered to be one of the first ethics papers to explicitly engage with predation as a problem.[32] In the paper, Clark argues that the concept that humans are obligated to aid animals against predators is not absurd, but that it follows only in the abstract, not in practice.[33]

Animal rights philosopher, Tom Regan in his 1983 book, The Case for Animal Rights, argued that humans have no obligation to prevent predation because carnivorous animals are not moral agents and as a result cannot violate the rights of the animals that they predate.[34] Along these lines, Julius Kapembwa argues that "intervention in predation is neither required nor permitted by animal rights theory".[4]

Steve Sapontzis, in his 1984 paper "Predation" argues against the idea that the problem of predation is a reductio ad absurdum for animal rights, instead, he claims that if we accept the view that we have an obligation to reduce avoidable animal suffering, then predation is something that we should work towards preventing if we can do so without inflicting greater suffering.[6] Sapontzis concludes that whether humans choose to fulfil this particular obligation, or attempt to reduce other forms of avoidable suffering, is a question of where humans can do the most good.

In a 2003 paper, the economist Tyler Cowen advocates, from a utility, rights and holistic perspective, for the policing of nature to reduce the predatory activity of certain animals to help their victims.[35]

The transhumanist philosopher David Pearce, in his 2009 essay, "Reprogramming Predators", claims that predation is an immense source of suffering in the world and that a "biosphere without suffering is technically feasible". He argues for the phased extinction of carnivorous species using immunocontraceptives or "reprogramming" them using gene editing so that their descendants become herbivores. Pearce lists and argues against a number of justifications used by people who think that suffering caused by predation does not matter and that it should be conserved in its current state, including a "television-based conception of the living world", "[s]elective realism" and "[a]daptive empathy deficits".[36]

In 2010, Jeff McMahan published "The Meat Eaters", an op-ed for the New York Times on predation as a moral issue, in which he argued that preventing the massive amounts of suffering and death caused by predation would be a good thing and that the extinction of carnivorous species could be instrumentally good if this could be achieved without inflicting "ecological upheaval involving more harm than would be prevented by the end of predation".[37] McMahan received a number of objections to his arguments and responded to these in another op-ed published in the same year, "Predators: A Response".[38] He later published his arguments as a chapter titled "The Moral Problem of Predation", in the 2015 book Philosophy Comes to Dinner.[7]

Peter Vallentyne argues that it is permissible for humans to intervene to help prey in limited ways, if the cost to humans is minimal, but that we should not eliminate predators. In the same way that we aid humans in need, when the cost to humans is minimal, humans might help wild animals in limited circumstances.[39]

Martha Nussbaum asserts that the predation problem and what should be done to solve it should be the subject of serious discussion, also arguing that there should be research into future solutions. Nussbaum draws attention to a need to convince people that predation is a problem and to challenge the common conception of predation as exciting and enthralling, which she believes has a negative impact on human culture. She goes on to challenge the idea of animals, who are preyed upon, as existing to be food for other animals, rather than being made to live for their own lives. Nussbaum concludes that humans, who have extensive control over animal lives and habitats, need to face up to their responsibilities towards wild animals and work towards their flourishing, rather than harming them.[40]

Some ethicists have made concrete proposals for reducing or preventing predation, including stopping the reintroduction of predators in locations where they have previously gone extinct,[41][42] and removing predators from wild areas.[43][44][45]

### Environmental ethics

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In 1984, the British ecologist Felicity A. Huntingford published "Some ethical issues raised by studies of predation and aggression", in which she discusses ethical issues and implications regarding the staging of artificial encounters for studies of predator-prey interactions.[46]

In the context of ecology, predation is considered to play a crucial and necessary role in ecosystems.[47] This has led some writers, such as Michael Pollan, to reject predation as being a moral problem at all, stating "predation is not a matter of morality or politics; it, also, is a matter of symbiosis".[48] Under Aldo Leopold's land ethic, native predators, as crucial components of biotic communities, are considered important to conserve.[49]

The environmental philosopher J. Baird Callicott asserts that the implication of animal rights theory, namely that we should protect animals from predators, would "[n]ot only [result in] the (humane) eradication of predators destroy the community, it would destroy the species which are the intended beneficiaries of this misplaced morality. Many prey species depend upon predators to optimize their populations."[50] Holmes Rolston III views predation as an essential natural process and driver of evolution, that is a "sad good" to be respected and valued.[51][52] Ty Raterman, an environmentalist, has argued that predation is something that can be lamented without implying that we have an obligation to prevent it.[53]

The environmental ethicist William Lynn has argued that from a welfare perspective predation "is necessary for the well-being of predators and prey" and essential for the maintenance of the integrity of the ecological communities.[52] Larry Rasmussen, a Christian environmental ethicist, has argued that predation is "not a pattern of morality we praise and advocate".[54]

## Other uses of the term

[edit]

"Predation problem" can also refer to the predation of animals who belong to species considered valuable to humans for economic reasons or conservation, such as domestic sheep predation by coyotes,[55] farmed salmon predation by seals,[56] the predation of animals who are hunted for sport or food[57] and cat predation of wild animals;[58] culling or removal of predatory animals may be carried out to reduce such incidents.[59][60]

## See also

[edit]

* Animal ethics
* Relationship between animal ethics and environmental ethics
* Ecology of fear
* Sentience
* Wild animal suffering

## References

[edit]

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45. ^ Bramble, Ben (2020). "Painlessly Killing Predators". Journal of Applied Philosophy. 38 (2): 217–225\. doi:10.1111/japp.12461. ISSN 1468-5930. S2CID 224855806.
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## Further reading

[edit]

* Milburn, Josh (2015-08-01). "Rabbits, Stoats and the Predator Problem: Why a Strong Animal Rights Position Need Not Call for Human Intervention to Protect Prey from Predators". Res Publica. 21 (3): 273–289\. doi:10.1007/s11158-015-9281-2. ISSN 1572-8692. S2CID 142147582.
* Comstock, Gary (2017). "Two Views of Animals in Environmental Ethics". In Schmidtz, David (ed.). Philosophy: Environmental Ethics. Macmillan Reference USA. pp. 151–183\. ISBN 978-0-02-866332-6.
* Cormier, Andrée-Anne; Rossi, Mauro (2018). "The Problem of Predation in Zoopolis". Journal of Applied Philosophy. 35 (4): 718–736\. doi:10.1111/japp.12250. ISSN 1468-5930.
* Monsó, Susana (2021-06-07), Siegetsleitner, Anne; Oberprantacher, Andreas; Frick, Marie-Luisa; Metschl, Ulrich (eds.), "Is Predation Necessarily Amoral?", Crisis and Critique: Philosophical Analysis and Current Events, De Gruyter, pp. 367–382, doi:10.1515/9783110702255-025, ISBN 978-3-11-070225-5, S2CID 236246626, retrieved 2021-06-09
* Allegri, Francesco (2022). "Is There a Moral Problem in Predation?" (PDF). Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism. 10 (2): 93–100 – via PhilArchive.

* v
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Animal rights

Topics (overviews, concepts, issues, cases)

| Overviews|

* Animal rights movement
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|

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* Abolitionism
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Issues|

| Animal agriculture|

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Wild animals|

* Culling wildlife
* Hare coursing
* Hunting
* International primate trade
* Ivory trade
* Predation problem
* Seal hunting
* Wild animal suffering
* Wildlife management

Other|

* Abandoned pets
* Animal captivity
* Animal sacrifice
* Animal slaughter
* Animal trial
* Animals in sport
* Blood sport
* Live food
* Live export

Cases|

* Brown Dog affair
* Cambridge University primates
* McLibel case
* Monkey selfie copyright dispute
* Pit of despair
* SHAC
* Silver Spring monkeys
* University of California, Riverside 1985 laboratory raid
* Unnecessary Fuss
* War of the currents

Studies|

* Animal ethics
* Anthrozoology
* Critical animal studies
* Ethology
* Vegan studies

Methodologies|

* Direct Action Everywhere
* Hunt sabotage

Observances|

* World Animal Day
* World Day for the End of Speciesism
* World Day for Laboratory Animals
* World Day for the End of Fishing
* World Vegan Day
* World Vegetarian Day

Advocates (academics, writers, activists)

| Academics
and writers|

| Contemporary|

* Carol J. Adams
* Aysha Akhtar
* Kristin Andrews
* Marc Bekoff
* Steven Best
* Paola Cavalieri
* Stephen R. L. Clark
* Alasdair Cochrane
* J. M. Coetzee
* Alice Crary
* David DeGrazia
* Daniel Dombrowski
* Sue Donaldson
* Josephine Donovan
* Joan Dunayer
* Mylan Engel
* Catia Faria
* Lawrence Finsen
* Michael W. Fox
* Gary L. Francione
* Robert Garner
* Valéry Giroux
* Lori Gruen
* John Hadley
* Oscar Horta
* Dale Jamieson
* Kyle Johannsen
* Melanie Joy
* Hilda Kean
* Will Kymlicka
* Renan Larue
* Thomas Lepeltier
* Andrew Linzey
* Clair Linzey
* Dan Lyons
* David Nibert
* Martha Nussbaum
* Clare Palmer
* Charles Patterson
* David Pearce
* Jessica Pierce
* Evelyn Pluhar
* Mark Rowlands
* Richard D. Ryder
* Steve F. Sapontzis
* Jeff Sebo
* Jérôme Segal
* Peter Singer
* Gary Steiner
* Cass Sunstein
* David Sztybel
* Michael Tye
* Tatjana Višak
* Paul Waldau
* Corey Lee Wrenn

|

Historical|

* Tom Beauchamp
* Jeremy Bentham
* David Renaud Boullier
* Stephen St. C. Bostock
* Brigid Brophy
* Peter Buchan
* Mona Caird
* Priscilla Cohn
* Henry Crowe
* Herman Daggett
* Richard Dean
* Wilhelm Dietler
* William Hamilton Drummond
* Edward Payson Evans
* T. Forster
* John Galsworthy
* Thomas G. Gentry
* V. A. Holmes-Gore
* Arthur Helps
* John Hildrop
* John Zephaniah Holwell
* Francis Hutcheson
* Soame Jenyns
* Marie Jungius
* Karl Christian Friedrich Krause
* John Lawrence
* Charles R. Magel
* Jean Meslier
* Mary Midgley
* J. Howard Moore
* José Ferrater Mora
* Robert Morris
* Leonard Nelson
* Edward Nicholson
* Siobhan O'Sullivan
* John Oswald
* Rod Preece
* Humphrey Primatt
* James Rachels
* Tom Regan
* Nathaniel Peabody Rogers
* Bernard Rollin
* Henry Stephens Salt
* Arthur Schopenhauer
* Laurids Smith
* John Styles
* Thomas Tryon
* Gary Varner
* Johann Friedrich Ludwig Volckmann
* Mary Anne Warren
* Adam Gottlieb Weigen
* Johann Heinrich Winckler
* Steven M. Wise
* Jon Wynne-Tyson
* Voltaire
* Thomas Young

Activists|

| Contemporary|

* James Aspey
* Greg Avery
* Matt Ball
* Martin Balluch
* Carole Baskin
* Barbi Twins
* Brigitte Bardot
* Gene Baur
* Yves Bonnardel
* Joey Carbstrong
* Aymeric Caron
* Jake Conroy
* Rod Coronado
* Karen Dawn
* Chris DeRose
* John Feldmann
* Bruce Friedrich
* Juliet Gellatley
* Tal Gilboa
* Antoine Goetschel
* Mark Gold
* Brigitte Gothière
* Alex Hershaft
* Wayne Hsiung
* Charlotte Laws
* Ronnie Lee
* Howard Lyman
* Evanna Lynch
* Bill Maher
* Keith Mann
* Jim Mason
* Dan Mathews
* Joaquin Phoenix
* Jo-Anne McArthur
* Luísa Mell
* Virginia McKenna
* Morrissey
* Ingrid Newkirk
* Heather Nicholson
* Jack Norris
* Ric O'Barry
* David Olivier
* Alex Pacheco
* Craig Rosebraugh
* Jasmin Singer
* Kim Stallwood
* Lynda Stoner
* Marianne Thieme
* Darren Thurston
* Christine Townend
* Wendy Turner-Webster
* Jerry Vlasak
* Louise Wallis
* Ed Winters
* Gary Yourofsky
* That Vegan Teacher

|

Historical|

* Cleveland Amory
* Henry B. Amos
* Bob Barker
* Ernest Bell
* William Brown
* Edith Carrington
* Frances Power Cobbe
* Joan Court
* Karen Davis
* Royal Dixon
* Muriel Dowding
* Elizabeth Farians
* Emarel Freshel
* André Géraud
* Lewis Gompertz
* James Granger
* Barry Horne
* Marie Huot
* Lizzy Lind af Hageby
* Jessie Mackay
* Alfred Mansfield Mitchell
* J. Isaac Pengelly
* Norm Phelps
* Jill Phipps
* Maud Ingersoll Probasco
* Hans Ruesch
* Magnus Schwantje
* Nell Shipman
* Henry Spira
* Joseph Stratton
* Andrew Tyler
* Gretchen Wyler

Movement (groups, parties)

| Groups|

| Contemporary|

* American Anti-Vivisection Society
* Animal Aid
* Animal Ethics
* Animal Justice
* Animal Justice Project
* Animal Legal Defense Fund
* Animal Liberation
* Animal Liberation Front
* Animal Liberation Press Office
* Animal Liberation Victoria
* Animal Rights Militia
* Animal Rising
* AnimaNaturalis
* Anti-Vivisection Coalition
* Anonymous for the Voiceless
* Beauty Without Cruelty
* Born Free Foundation
* Centre for Animals and Social Justice
* Chinese Animal Protection Network
* Cruelty Free International
* Direct Action Everywhere
* Doctors Against Animal Experiments
* Equanimal
* Every Animal
* Farm Animal Rights Movement
* Faunalytics
* Great Ape Project
* Hunt Saboteurs Association
* In Defense of Animals
* Korea Animal Rights Advocates
* L214
* Last Chance for Animals
* Massachusetts Animal Rights Coalition
* Mercy for Animals
* Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics
* People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
* Revolutionary Cells – Animal Liberation Brigade
* Rise for Animals
* Sentience Politics
* Uncaged Campaigns
* United Activists for Animal Rights
* United Poultry Concerns
* UPF-Centre for Animal Ethics
* Viva!
* Voice for Animals Humane Society
* Voiceless

|

Historical|

* Canadian Anti-Vivisection Society
* Humanitarian League (1891–1919)
* Millennium Guild
* Order of the Golden Age
* Oxford Group

Parties|

* Animal Justice Party (Australia)
* Animal Politics EU (Europe)
* Animal Protection Party of Canada (Canada)
* Animal Justice Party of Finland (Finland)
* Animals' Party (Sweden)
* Animalist Movement (Italy)
* Animalist Party with the Environment (Spain)
* DierAnimal (Belgium)
* Human Environment Animal Protection Party (Germany)
* Italian Animalist Party (Italy)
* Party for the Animals (Netherlands)
* People Animals Nature (Portugal)
* V-Partei³ (Germany)

Activism|

* Animal Rights National Conference

Media (books, films, periodicals, albums)

| Books|

* On Abstinence from Eating Animals (3rd century)
* A Reasonable Plea for the Animal Creation (1746)
* A System of Moral Philosophy, in Three Books (1755)
* The Cry of Nature (1791)
* An Essay on Humanity to Animals (1798)
* Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes (1824)
* The Rights of Animals (1838)
* The Ethics of Diet (1883)
* A Plea for Vegetarianism and Other Essays (1886)
* Animals' Rights (1892)
* Evolutional Ethics and Animal Psychology (1897)
* Better-World Philosophy (1899)
* The Logic of Vegetarianism (1899)
* The Universal Kinship (1906)
* The New Ethics (1907)
* Animals, Men and Morals (1971)
* Animal Liberation (1975)
* The Case for Animal Rights (1983)
* Morals, Reason, and Animals (1987)
* Zoos and Animal Rights (1993)
* Animals, Property, and the Law (1995)
* The Lives of Animals (1999)
* Eternal Treblinka (2001)
* Do Animals Have Rights? (2005)
* Striking at the Roots (2008)
* An American Trilogy (2009)
* An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory (2010)
* Animal Rights Without Liberation (2012)
* Political Animals and Animal Politics (2014)
* Animal (De)liberation (2016)
* Sentientist Politics (2018)
* Wild Animal Ethics (2020)
* Animal Ethics in the Wild (2022)
* Making a Stand for Animals (2022)
* Animal Rights Law (2023)
* The Moral Circle (2025)

|

Films|

* The Animals Film (1981)
* A Cow at My Table (1998)
* Shores of Silence (2000)
* The Witness (2000)
* Meet Your Meat (2002)
* Legally Blonde 2 (2003)
* The Meatrix (2003)
* Peaceable Kingdom (2004)
* Earthlings (2005)
* Behind the Mask (2006)
* Your Mommy Kills Animals (2007)
* Food, Inc. (2009)
* The Cove (2009)
* Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home (2009)
* Forks Over Knives (2011)
* Vegucated (2011)
* An Apology to Elephants (2013)
* Speciesism: The Movie (2013)
* The Ghosts in Our Machine (2013)
* Unlocking the Cage (2016)
* Land of Hope and Glory (2017)
* Carnage (2017)
* Okja (2017)
* Dominion (2018)
* Seaspiracy (2021)

Periodicals|

| Journals|

* Animal Sentience
* Between the Species
* Cahiers antispécistes
* Etica & Animali
* Journal of Animal Ethics
* Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism
* The Animals' Defender

|

Magazines|

* Arkangel
* Bite Back
* Muutoksen kevät
* No Compromise
* Satya

Albums|

* Animal Liberation (1987)
* Tame Yourself (1991)
* Manifesto (2008)
* Salvation of Innocents (2014)
* Onward to Freedom (2014)

Fairs and exhibitions|

* Holocaust on your Plate (2003)

* Category ( 137 )

* v
* t
* e

Environmental humanities

Art|

* Crop art
* Environmental art
* Environmental sculpture
* Land art
* Landscape painting
* Photography
* conservation
* landscape
* nature
* wildlife
* Sculpture trail
* Site-specific art
* Sustainable art

Culture|

* Cultural ecology
* Cultural landscape
* Ecolinguistics
* Ecological anthropology
* Ecosemiotics
* Environmental anthropology
* Ethnoecology
* Traditional ecological knowledge

Literature|

* Ecocomposition
* Ecocriticism
* Ecopoetry
* Geocriticism
* Nature writing
* Outdoor literature

Philosophy|

* Aesthetics of nature
* Critical realism
* Deep ecology
* Ecofeminism
* Ecophenomenology
* Ecosophy
* Environmental ethics
* Environmental justice
* Environmental philosophy
* Predation problem
* Social ecology

Religion|

* Ecotheology
* Environmental theology
* Religion and environmentalism
* Spiritual ecology
* Stewardship

Other|

* Anthrozoology
* Ecomusicology
* Environmental communication
* Environmental education
* adult
* arts-based
* Environmental history
* Environmental interpretation
* Environmental journalism
* Environmental law
* Outdoor education
* Political representation of nature
* Psychogeography
* Thematic interpretation

Related|

* Animal studies
* Bioethics
* Biophilia hypothesis
* Do it yourself (ethic)
* Natural history (museums)
* Popular science
* Property theory (common property)
* Sexecology
* Science, technology and society
* science studies
* Simple living
* Slow food
* Spirit of place
* Sustainability studies

Applied|

* Arts and Crafts movement
* Acoustic ecology
* Biomimicry
* Ecological design
* Ecomuseum
* Educational trail
* Environmental design
* Landscape architecture
* assessment
* planning
* Nature center
* New Urbanism
* Sustainable architecture
* Sustainable design
* Sustainable fashion
* Themed walk

* Environment portal
* Category
* Commons
* Journals
* Degrees

* v
* t
* e

Wild animal suffering

Concepts|

* Animal ethics
* Ecology of fear
* Predation problem
* Relationship between animal ethics and environmental ethics
* Speciesism
* Welfare biology
* Wild animal welfare

Interventions|

* Contraception
* Rehabilitation
* Vaccination

Media|

* Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes (1824)
* The Universal Kinship (1906)
* Morals, Reason, and Animals (1987)
* Nature Red in Tooth and Claw (2008)
* "The Meat Eaters" (2010)
* Sentientist Politics (2019)
* Wild Animal Ethics (2020)
* Animal Ethics in the Wild (2022)
* Making a Stand for Animals (2022)

Organizations|

* Animal Ethics
* Wild Animal Initiative
* Wildlife Disaster Network

Writers|

| Contemporary|

* Elisa Aaltola
* Jacy Reese Anthis
* Yves Bonnardel
* J. Baird Callicott
* Richard Dawkins
* Sue Donaldson
* Catia Faria
* Oscar Horta
* Kyle Johannsen
* Jeff McMahan
* Will Kymlicka
* Tobias Leenaert
* Thomas Lepeltier
* Ole Martin Moen
* Arne Næss
* Yew-Kwang Ng
* David Olivier
* William MacAskill
* Martha Nussbaum
* Clare Palmer
* David Pearce
* Holmes Rolston III
* Stephen R. L. Clark
* Steven Nadler
* Steve F. Sapontzis
* Jeff Sebo
* Peter Singer
* Peter Vallentyne

|

Historical|

* Charles Darwin
* Erasmus Darwin
* Lewis Gompertz
* William Paley
* J. Howard Moore
* Tom Regan
* Alexander Skutch

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