#210 – Cameron Meyer Shorb on dismantling the myth that we can’t do anything to help wild animals

80,000 Hours Podcast

"I really don’t want to give the impression that I think it is easy to make predictable, controlled, safe interventions in wild systems where there are many species interacting. I don’t think it’s easy, but I don’t see any reason to think that it’s impossible. And I think we have been making progress. I think there’s every reason to think that if we continue doing research, both at the theoretical level — How do ecosystems work? What sorts of things are likely to have what sorts of indirect effects? — and then also at the practical level — Is this intervention a good idea? — I really think we’re going to come up with plenty of things that would be helpful to plenty of animals." —Cameron Meyer Shorb

In today’s episode, host Luisa Rodriguez speaks to Cameron Meyer Shorb — executive director of the Wild Animal Initiative — about the cutting-edge research on wild animal welfare.

Links to learn more, highlights, and full transcript.

They cover:

• How it’s almost impossible to comprehend the sheer number of wild animals on Earth — and why that makes their potential suffering so important to consider.
• How bad experiences like disease, parasites, and predation truly are for wild animals — and how we would even begin to study that empirically.
• The tricky ethical dilemmas in trying to help wild animals without unintended consequences for ecosystems or other potentially sentient beings.
• Potentially promising interventions to help wild animals — like selective reforestation, vaccines, fire management, and gene drives.
• Why Cameron thinks the best approach to improving wild animal welfare is to first build a dedicated research field — and how Wild Animal Initiative’s activities support this.
• The many career paths in science, policy, and technology that could contribute to improving wild animal welfare.
• And much more.

Chapters:

• Cold open (00:00:00)
• Luisa's intro (00:01:04)
• The interview begins (00:03:40)
• One concrete example of how we might improve wild animal welfare (00:04:04)
• Why should we care about wild animal suffering? (00:10:00)
• What’s it like to be a wild animal? (00:19:37)
• Suffering and death in the wild (00:29:19)
• Positive, benign, and social experiences (00:51:33)
• Indicators of welfare (01:01:40)
• Can we even help wild animals without unintended consequences? (01:13:20)
• Vaccines for wild animals (01:30:59)
• Fire management (01:44:20)
• Gene drive technologies (01:47:42)
• Common objections and misconceptions about wild animal welfare (01:53:19)
• Future promising interventions (02:21:58)
• What’s the long game for wild animal welfare? (02:27:46)
• Eliminating the biological basis for suffering (02:33:21)
• Optimising for high-welfare landscapes (02:37:33)
• Wild Animal Initiative’s work (02:44:11)
• Careers in wild animal welfare (02:58:13)
• Work-related guilt and shame (03:12:57)
• Luisa's outro (03:19:51)

Producer: Keiran Harris
Audio engineering: Ben Cordell, Milo McGuire, Simon Monsour, and Dominic Armstrong
Content editing: Luisa Rodriguez, Katy Moore, and Keiran Harris
Transcriptions: Katy Moore