Download Compassionate Conservation

Compassionate Conservation
Is recreational hunting defensible? PART 2
Emeritus Professor Marc Bekoff & Dr Daniel Ramp
THINK.CHANGE.DO
Outline of evenings presentations
• What is compassionate conservation and why do we need it (PART 1)
• Talk One
• Daniel Ramp
• “Why and how do we conserve nature”
• Talk Two
• Marc Bekoff
• “The case for compassionate conservation”
• A cost-benefit analysis of recreational hunting (PART 2)
• Talk Three
• Daniel Ramp
• “Shooting our mouths off about conservation”
• Talk Four
• Marc Bekoff
• “Would you do this to your dog?”
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Shooting our mouths off about conservation
THINK.CHANGE.DO
Dr Daniel Ramp
Senior Lecturer
School of the Environment
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THINKK – the think tank for kangaroos
• Established in 2009 to create discourse on kangaroo ecology and management
in Australia
• Provide a focal point for academics and the community in which to share
knowledge and ideas
• Publish reports and peer-reviewed articles
• Four key research reports:
• Four peer-reviewed articles with five more currently in progress
• Three Articles in The Conversation:
• It’s raining kangaroos: the ups and downs of kangaroo management
• Food fight – Aboriginal elders take on the kangaroo industry
• Australia's commercial kangaroo industry: hopping to nowhere?
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THINK Wildlife
• Focus on compassionate conservation practice at UTS
• Working across the faculties of Science, Law, Business, and the Institute for
Sustainable Futures
• Working with government and non-government organisations
• Research, teaching, community outreach
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Society for Conservation Biology
• Symposium on Compassionate Conservation at the 26 th International
Congress for Conservation Biology in July 2013
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A framework for compassionate conservation
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Is there a clear conservation objective?
Is it necessary to intervene?
What intervention options are there?
What is the minimum number of animals that will be affected to achieve the
desired outcome?
What impacts will the intervention cause?
Is there anything that can be done to minimise harm or enhance welfare?
Will minimising harm or enhancing welfare be likely to improve
conservation outcomes and can these be measured?
Will the intervention have wider negative or positive implications?
Will the outcomes be lasting or will the intervention need to be repeated?
Is the intervention sustainable?
What are the implications of success?
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Let’s look at introduced species
• Introduced species management has adopted three vital control principles
• Necessity
• Effectiveness
Sharp T, Saunders G. 2007. Model code of practice for the humane control of wild dogs. NSW
Department of Primary Industries.
• Humaneness
• Governments take managing of introduced species very seriously and
activities are usually scientifically-based, strategic, and employed in a
manner to achieve measurable targets
• Eradication (and hence killing) is a major part of management practices
• “Conservation hunting” argument is that the public can assist with meeting
targets
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Where is recreational hunting allowed in NSW?
• In 400 State forests and Crown land areas (2 million Ha of public land)
• Hunters must be a member of the Game Council NSW Approved Hunting
Organisation (AHO), hold an R- Licence and Firearms license
• No licence is required to hunt on private land
• R-licence categories allows hunting with:
• Firearms
• Bows
• Dogs
• Blackpowder
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How much land do we protect in NSW?
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Current hunting areas in NSW
Not including private land
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Trial hunting areas in National Parks
79 National Parks and reserves, covering close
to 3 million hectares or 40% of all NSW parks
and reserves
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Potential hunting areas in National Parks
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No hunting areas in National Parks
Only 48 have been expressly excluded from
hunting
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Can hunting reduce impacts on biodiversity?
• 28 dedicated Conservation Hunting Groups in NSW
(facilitated by the Game Council NSW)
“who contribute to the management of game and feral
animal populations on private land and some public
lands in NSW”
• The Sporting Shooters Association claims in the
Australian Shooters Journal (vol. 11 issue 1):*
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There is “an abundance” of scientific evidence that
recreational hunting is effective for feral animal
control and highly beneficial for conservation
Recreational hunters offer a “free” or “low cost”
service that governments should use to control feral
animals on public lands
The motivations of hunters are aligned to
conservation, and provide the most effective basis
for conservation
* Invasive Species Council 2009 “Is hunting conservation?”
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Let’s look at pigs in NSW
• Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002
• Animals that can be targeted
• Category 1
• Wild deer, California quail, pheasant, partridge, peafowl, turkey, some ducks
• Category 2
• Foxes, rabbits, feral goat, feral pig, cat and wild dog (other than a dingo)
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What do we know about where pigs are?
Occurrence
Abundance
Distribution
West, P. (2008). Assessing Invasive Animals in Australia 2008. National Land & Water Resources Audit and
Invasive Animals CRC, Canberra.
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How good is our information?
West, P. (2008). Assessing Invasive Animals in Australia 2008. National Land & Water Resources Audit and
Invasive Animals CRC, Canberra.
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Distribution and abundance in NSW
West, P. (2008). Assessing Invasive Animals in Australia 2008. National Land & Water Resources Audit and
Invasive Animals CRC, Canberra.
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Why are pigs a problem?
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Impacts on agriculture
• Pigs can impact through*
• Predation of newborn lambs
• Reduction in crop yields
• Damage to fences and water sources
• Competition for feed
* PestSmart Toolkit for Feral Pigs
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Impacts on biodiversity
• Pigs can impact through*
• Turnover of soil
• Fouling water sources
• Trampling vegetation
• Spreading weeds
• Predating upon fauna
• Has implications for 18 nationally
listed threatened species
• However, impacts are incompletely
researched and mostly anecdotal
* Threat abatement plan for predation, habitat degradation, competition and disease transmission by feral pigs.
DEH 2005.
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What actions do governments take?
• Threat abatement plans (DEH
2005)
• Poisons
• Pigs are susceptible to toxins such
as sodium monofluoroacetate
(1080) and the human food
preservative sodium nitrite
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Trapping and shooting
Fencing and habitat manipulation
Bio-control techniques
Dogs and harvesting
* Threat abatement plan for predation, habitat degradation, competition and disease transmission by feral pigs.
DEH 2005.
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How large an area do you have to target?
• Cowled et al. (2006) showed that an
extensive, repeated aerial shooting
program across a 4,000 km2 MU,
produced no demographic or genetic
changes
J Wildlife Manage (2006) 70:1690-1697
• Cowled et al. (2008) showed that MUs
needed to be much larger to achieve
natural resource and conservation
protection
• Extending across entire sub-populations
• Establish buffers against immigration
Conserv Genet (2008) 9:211–224
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Current management strategies
• Five main objectives of the national TAP for pigs*
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Prevent range expansion and reduction in areas important for biodiversity
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Integrate management plans into NRM planning
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Increase awareness
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Quantify impacts on biodiversity
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Improve effectiveness, efficiency and humaneness of control methods
• Clear that only systematic, collaborative and extensive programs of control
have any effect on pig numbers
* Threat abatement plan for predation, habitat degradation, competition
and disease transmission by feral pigs. DEH 2005.
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How do you reduce pig numbers?
• Problematically, reducing pig density is not a simple task
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* Invasive Species Council 2012 “Recreational hunting NSW claims v facts”
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Can hunting reduce pig numbers?
• Detailed analysis by the Invasive Species Council*
* Invasive Species Council 2012 “Recreational hunting NSW claims v facts”
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Is recreational hunting a free service?
• Detailed analysis by the Invasive Species Council*
* Invasive Species Council 2012 “Recreational hunting NSW claims v facts”
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Do the few that are killed improve conservation efforts?
• Likely that hunting has negative conservation outcomes
• One animal killed does not save prey individuals unless it coincides with a
population reduction
• Natural mortality is very high but removal of large individuals results in competitive
release, reducing local mortality rates
• Hunters can contribute to spread into new areas, through chasing or deliberate
release
• No authority or regulatory body supports the premise that recreational
hunting reduces introduced species numbers or benefits the environment
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Poor welfare outcomes
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Bringing compassion to conservation practice
• We currently do not meet world standards in protected area allocation
• Convention on Biological Diversity 2011-2020 – Target 11: at least 17%
• A way forwards with compassion:
• Adopt the precautionary principle to animal wellbeing
• Include ethics in decision making
• Move from exploitative-based sustainability to equity-based sustainability
• Encouraging wildlife research that addresses welfare
• Compassion is not an undesirable state
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Would you do this to your dog?
THINK.CHANGE.DO
Marc Bekoff
Emeritus Professor
University of Colorado
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