Oscar Horta of the University of Santiago de Compostela on how we can best help wild animals

12/18/20 • 79 min

“The main work that really needs to be carried out here is work in the intersection of animal welfare science and the science of ecology and other fields in life science... You could also build a career, not as a scientist, but say, in public administration or government. And you can reach a position in policy-making that can be relevant for the field, so there are plenty of different options there... Getting other interventions accepted and implemented would require significant lobby work. And that’s why having people, for instance, if you have people who are sympathetic to reducing wild animal suffering, and they are working in, say, national parks administration or working with the agricultural authorities, forest authorities, or whatever, these people could really make a significant difference.”

Oscar Horta

Animals in the wild suffer, often to a large degree, because of natural disasters, parasites, disease, starvation, and other causes. But what can we do as individuals to help them? What are the most urgent priorities?

Oscar Horta is a Professor of philosophy at the University of Santiago de Compostela and a co-founder of the nonprofit Animal Ethics. He has published and lectured in English and other languages on topics including speciesism and wild animal welfare.

Topics discussed in the episode:

Why should animal advocates and researchers think more carefully about the definition of speciesism? (1:40)
Why Oscar believes framing our messaging in terms in speciesism and focusing on attitudes rather than behavior would help advocates to do more good (9:10)
How relevant is existing research to the proposed research field of welfare biology, that would consider wild animals among other animals, and how can we integrate it? (16:40)
What sorts of research are most urgently needed to advance the field of welfare biology and how can people go about pursuing this? (21:13)
Careers related to helping wild animals in policy (36:10)
What you can do if you already work at an animal advocacy organization or are interested in growing the field in other ways (39:45)
The size of the current wild animal welfare movement in and the work of relevant nonprofits (51:40)
How can we most effectively build support for this sort of work among other animal advocates and effective altruists? (57:33)
How can we most effectively build a new academic field? (1:02:49)
To what extent is public-facing advocacy desirable at this point? (1:10:09)

Resources discussed in the episode are available at https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/podcast

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Oscar Horta

Topics discussed in the episode:

Why should animal advocates and researchers think more carefully about the definition of speciesism? (1:40)
Why Oscar believes framing our messaging in terms in speciesism and focusing on attitudes rather than behavior would help advocates to do more good (9:10)
How relevant is existing research to the proposed research field of welfare biology, that would consider wild animals among other animals, and how can we integrate it? (16:40)
What sorts of research are most urgently needed to advance the field of welfare biology and how can people go about pursuing this? (21:13)
Careers related to helping wild animals in policy (36:10)
What you can do if you already work at an animal advocacy organization or are interested in growing the field in other ways (39:45)
The size of the current wild animal welfare movement in and the work of relevant nonprofits (51:40)
How can we most effectively build support for this sort of work among other animal advocates and effective altruists? (57:33)
How can we most effectively build a new academic field? (1:02:49)
To what extent is public-facing advocacy desirable at this point? (1:10:09)

Resources discussed in the episode are available at https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/podcast

Support the show

Previous Episode

Oscar Horta of the University of Santiago de Compostela on why we should help wild animals

“We want there to be animals like elephants, who on average have very good lives, rather than animals who tend to have very bad lives... If you have, say, a population of animals who reproduce by laying a million eggs. On average, only two of them would survive... Due to how the life history of animals is in many cases, we are not really speaking here about exceptions but rather about the norm. It's very common for animals to have lives that contain more suffering — sometimes much more suffering — than positive wellbeing... Regarding what needs to change most urgently, first of all we need to get more people involved. And also, of course, more funding would be greatly appreciated, because this is a severely underfunded field of research and advocacy.”

Oscar Horta

Animals in the wild suffer, often to a large degree, because of natural disasters, parasites, disease, starvation, and other causes. But is there actually anything we can do to help them? And would that even be desirable?

Oscar Horta is a Professor of philosophy at the University of Santiago de Compostela and a co-founder of the nonprofit Animal Ethics. He has published and lectured in both English and Spanish on topics including speciesism and wild animal welfare.

Topics discussed in the episode:

The work that is currently been done to help wild animals and what needs to change (2:08)
The “idyllic view of nature” and why it seems incorrect (7:47)
How can we best help wild animals? What should we focus on now? (25:19)
Which interventions seem promising to help wild animals on a larger scale? (36:18)
How does the case for intervention to help wild animals depend on different ethical theories? (46:27)
Does uncertainty about the indirect effects of our actions to help wild animals make this area less promising? (54:09)
Can we still help wild animals if we’re concerned about wild animals’ autonomy? (58:47)
Does the case for working on wild animal welfare depend on an overall view about whether wild animals have lives that are net negative or net positive? (1:02:46)
If we’re concerned about problems that will be large in scale over very long-term time horizons, should we still prioritize wild animal issues? (1:13:15)
Why Oscar believes the concept of moral status should be abandoned (1:21:50)

Resources discussed in the episode are available at https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/podcast

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Next Episode

Ajay Dahiya of The Pollination Project on funding grassroots animal advocacy and inner transformation

“Why inner transformation, why these practices are also built into model: unless we root out the root cause of the issue, which is disconnection, which is a lack of understanding that we are interrelated, and therefore I have an inherent responsibility to show up in the world with kindness and compassion and to reduce the harm and the suffering that I cause in the world. Unless we’re able to do that, these problems are still going to exist. The issues of race relations still exist. How many years have people been fighting for this? The issue of homophobia, of racism, whatever it is, they still exist; why do they still exist after so much work, after so much money has been poured into it, after so many lives have been lost, so many people have been beaten and spilled their blood? They’ve shed their tears for these issues. Because unless we address the underlying schisms within human consciousness, within us as individuals, it’s still going to exist; it’s still going to be there. Direct impact, indirect impact, I just want to see impact and if you’re someone who wants to make an impact, I want to hear from you.

Ajay Dahiya

Animals are harmed in all continents in the world. But how can we support the advocates seeking to help them? And what sort of support is most needed?

Ajay Dahiya is the executive director of The Pollination Project, an organisation which funds and supports grassroots advocates and organizations working towards positive social change, such as to help animals.

Topics discussed in the episode:

How the Pollination Project helps grassroots animal advocates (1:20)
How we can support grassroots animal advocacy in India and build a robust movement (12:48)
How the grants and support offered concretely benefit the grantees (19:22)
The application and review process for The Pollination Project’s grant-making (24:00)
What makes good grantees? And how does The Pollination Project evaluate them? (27:34)
How does The Pollination Project identify and evaluate grantees? (35:14)
How important is the non-financial support that the Pollination Project offers relative to the financial support? (44:54)
What similarities and differences does The Pollination Project have to other grant-makers that support effective animal advocacy? (55:23)
What are the difficulties of making grants in lots of different countries? (1:02:00)
To what extent are grassroots animal advocates constrained by a lack of funding? (1:06:26)
Why doesn’t The Pollination Project’s prioritize some of the work that it does over others? Isn’t this kind of prioritization necessary in order to maximize positive impact? (1:10:00)
What are the main challenges that The Pollination Project faces, preventing it having further impact? (1:29:05)
What makes good grant-makers? (1:31:58)
How Ajay’s experience as a monk came about and how it affects his work as a grant-maker (1:34:37)

Resources discussed in the episode are available at https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/podcast

Support the show

The Sentience Institute Podcast - Oscar Horta of the University of Santiago de Compostela on how we can best help wild animals

Transcript

Speaker 100:00:05.580

Welcome to the sentience Institute podcast, where we interview activists, entrepreneurs, and researchers about the most effective strategies to expand humanity's moral circle with a focus on expanding the circle to found animals. I'm Jamie Harris research at Ascentis Institute and an animal advocacy careers. What control 13th episode of the podcast? In our last episode, I had a discussion with Oscar Horter, who is a professor of philosophy at a u