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Conflating Science and Values in Wild Life Conservation

David Lavigne PhD Dr philosScience Advisor

International Fund for Animal Welfare

Invited presentation. Deer Management Advisory Committee, Hamilton Conservation Authority, 16 February 2011, Ancaster, ON.

Note: some copyrighted material from the

original talk has been removed from this version

of the presentation.

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Among the observations and conclusions

� The decision to conserve is not a question of science…

� Conservation has much more to do with societal attitudes, values, objectives…in short, with ethical choices…

� Scientists are human and, like everyone else, have their own values and built-in biases…

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Decisions to…

� Protect threatened and endangered species,

� Designate protected areas,

� Maintain biodiversity,

� Remove sustainable yields, including MSY,

� Exterminate exotic species,

� Restore altered ecosystems,

� “Rewild” North America,

� Pass animal welfare legislation,

� Adopt precautionary approaches,

� Implement sustainable development, and

� Cull predators, ‘pests’, or ‘overabundant’ species,

Etc.

…all reflect values or ethical choices.

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1981

1985

2000

Culling MammalsA symposium organized by The Mammal Society and the International Fund for

Animal WelfareAt the Meeting Rooms of

the London Zoological Society

Friday 24 November and Saturday 25

November 2000Rapporteur’s remarks:

Where have we been and where are

we going?David M. Lavigne

International Fund for Animal Welfare

2003

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Overpopulation, overabundance…

“Overpopulation may be defined

rigorously as too many animals, but the rigor ends there.”

Caughley 1981, p. 7

Caughley, G. 1981. Overpopulation. pp 7-19. In P. Jewell & S. Holt (eds). Problems in Management of Locally Overabundant Wild Mammals. Academic Press, New York.

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Caughley’s Four Classes of “Overpopulation”

1. Animals threaten human life or livelihood(animals too numerous only because their presence is inconvenient and in conflict with human interests), e.g. kangaroos in Australia, coyotes in North America, seals in Atlantic Canada, deer in Ancaster…or, a bat in your bedroom!

2. Animals depress densities of favored species, e.g. elk eat aspen in Yellowstone; cormorants kill trees, wolves eat ungulates, seals and whales eat fish. Reflects a desire for a more socially acceptable outcome than that provided by nature.

3. Animals too numerous for their own good.Here, the equilibrium density is seen as “overpopulation”. Rejects the natural ecological outcome in favour of an opinion (a judgment of value) as to what is “best” for the population.

Caughley 1981

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Classes 1, 2 & 3 simply reflect the personal background and system of values of the protagonists.

Caughley 1981

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4. The system of plants and animals is off its equilibrium, e.g. population eruptions into new habitats, herbivore increases resulting from a surge of plant growth following a run of “good” seasons. The only one to which ecology is central and the only one about which a relatively objective and scholarly [meaning scientific] discussion is possible.

Warning: Classes 1, 2 & 3 often portrayed as Class 4.

Caughley 1981

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Conclusion…

“I do not know of any system

dislocated permanently by a bout of overpopulation.

The phenomenon is temporary and its remission spontaneous.”

Caughley 1981, p. 14

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Calls for culling are usually couched in scientific language, e.g. the need to reduce competition; the need to protect other species or ecosystems, or to restore some mythological “balance of nature”…often “supported” by questionable scientific arguments.

Most calls for culling have little to do with science and a whole lot to do with attitudes, values and objectives…and politics, which is why culling debates are so heated and emotional…and, seemingly, never ending…

In process, conservation science (including its lexicon), and values, become conflated.

If I’ve learned anything…

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Language in 21st Century Conservation…Newspeak and the conflation of values and science

� Science = population numbers & demography

� Conservation = commercial consumptive use

� Sustainable utilization = commercial consumptive use = unsustainable utilization

� ‘Overabundance’ ‘hyperabundance’ (value judgments portrayed as science)

� Ecosystem management = culling

� Culling – usually a euphemism for ‘killing’

� Harvesting – a euphemism for ‘killing’

� ‘Balance of nature’ – ecology’s enduring myth (Kricher2009), rejected by ecologists more than 80 years ago (Elton 1927)

� Social Carrying Capacity (conflating values with science)

� Wildlife Management – an oxymoron

� Sustainable development – another oxymoron…a new world deception (Willers 1994)

Lavigne 2002, 2004; Lavigne et al. 2006

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Predator Paranoia, Deer Fear, and other phobias

Coyote concerns in QuispamsisLast Updated: Wednesday, January 27, 2010 | 8:15 PM AT

CBC NewsToo many wolves and not enough deer in northern MinnesotaBy Doug Smith

Star Tribune (Minneapolis)Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - 2:46pm

Wolves, bears blamed for decline of elk in

YellowstoneSALMON, Idaho | Wed Jan 12, 2011 4:26pm EST

Cull seals to help cod: fishermenLast Updated: Friday, June 4, 2010 | 7:43 AM NT

CBC NewsThe environmental costs of protecting Bambi MARK HUME |

VANCOUVER— From Monday's Globe and Mail Published Sunday, Jan. 16, 2011 11:27PM EST

Last updated Monday, Jan. 17, 2011 11:21AM EST

Too many deer on Gulf Islands: B.C. biologistLast Updated: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 | 2:20 PM ET

Most hated bird in the world:Most hated bird in the world:Most hated bird in the world:Most hated bird in the world:

Sanctioned killing of cormorants continues unabated in MinnesotaSanctioned killing of cormorants continues unabated in MinnesotaSanctioned killing of cormorants continues unabated in MinnesotaSanctioned killing of cormorants continues unabated in MinnesotaMike Mosedale, Minnpost.com

July 17, 2008

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What’s all this got to do with deer in Ancaster?

Conclusion

“Decisions about deer management

are about human values”

Recommendation

“Support for deer-control as a management action for conservation, needs to overcome the emotionally-rooted perception of deer as Bambi as an innocent”.

Bazely, D. et al. 2010. Disappearing forests? The long-term impacts of white-tailed deer on Carolinian (deciduous) forest communities...A REGIONAL PERSPECTIVE. Deer Management Advisory Committee (DMAC) presentation. Hamilton, ON. 7 October 2010.

√

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Observations…

The recommendation is:

� Value-based, NOT science-based;

� Emotional political discourse, not scientific discourse

� Dismisses those who hold other (equally valid) values as emotional ‘Bambi lovers’.

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Conclusion (p 31)

Unusually large concentrations of wintering deer [based on one survey?].

• Exact reasons NOT determined.

• Did NOT assess

• extent or impact of herbivore damage

• Human-related impacts

• Inferred deer-related impacts on biodiversity and forest ecosystems

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elsewhere, p. 27

Without reducing the numbers of deer wintering in Ancaster area

• deer population will continue to increase; [based on a single survey with NO population trend data?]

• deer herbivory damage and human related impacts [which were NOT examined] will increase.

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Recommendations (p. 31) include (#3):

Consider managing specific deer over abundance through controlled gun hunting (i.e. deer cull).

“A managed cull…will result in the quickest short-term solution” (p. 27-28).

“Lethal deer management techniques are the only practical method of eliminating deer herbivory, biodiversity impacts and socially unacceptable human deer interactions at a landscape level scale”(p. 30).

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Interesting question…

“…why do so many

"biologists" get on the killing bandwagons? Always puzzles me. We either have to kill animals, or feed them. Can't just let them alone.”

Sidney Holt, pers. comm. 7 Jan. 2011

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All of which presents a conundrum for

advisory committees and task forces…

� Invariably asked to provide sound, scientific-based recommendations…

� e.g. Eminent Persons Panel on Sealing was asked to estimate the “optimum” number of seals for the Northwest Atlantic off Eastern Canada. The question was deemed beyond the realm of science, and the panel declined to provide a number.

� e.g. DMAC has been asked “to provide sound, scientific-based recommendations to HCA Board of Directors for the short- and long-term management of deer populations at Iroquoia Heights Conservation Area”

(http://www.conservationhamilton.ca/deer-management-committee/

hca/programs-services/deer-management-advisory-committee)

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What can science contribute to the discussion?

� Science can answer some questions, test hypotheses, inform the debate…, and illuminate the range of political choices,

� But science cannot tell you whether to cull or not to cull, and

� Science will never resolve the culling controversy.

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How to Proceed?

“Conservation must be viewed as a moral position” and “ultimately be defended in pragmatic… terms”.

R.J. Brooks 2006

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Ultimately…

� The decision about what to do with deer in Ancaster, including doing nothing, will be a political decision…that’s how we choose among competing values and objectives in Canadian society.

� As in any political debate, “The participants will distort the advantages of their positions and the disadvantages of their opponent’s. They will shade the truth - first for their audiences; then in many cases, for themselves.”

Donovan et al. 1981

� Ensure that science is not misused and abused in the process.

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What have we learned from a century of culling?

1. Few culling programs have clearly articulated measureable objectives.

2. Few have evaluated the results of the culling program with respect to those objectives.

3. The effects of culling are typically dependent on continued control.

4. Culling often has non-intuitive and unintended consequences for both target and other species.

5. Fashions change and re-introduction programs are costly.

6. There are usually alternatives to culling that are more likely to achieve ecological objectives, e.g. wildlife corridors.

7. The culling controversy never ends…e.g. Mediterranean monk seals.

Lavigne 2003; Bowen & Lidgard 2010

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A final thought…

It is good to maintain and to

encourage life;

it is bad to destroy life or to obstruct it.

Albert Schweitzer 1923

In 1923, Dr Albert Schweitzer proposed what he called "the most universal definition of good and evil“…

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To-day it is thought to be going too far to declare that constant regard for everything that lives, down to the lowest manifestations of life, is a demand made by rational ethics.

The time is coming, however, when people will be astonished that mankind needed so long a time to learn to regard thoughtless injury to life as incompatible with ethics. Albert Schweitzer 1923

Thank you…