Understanding Wild Animal Welfare

We explored the cutting edge of wild animal welfare science our full interview with Cameron Meyer Shorb, executive director of Wild Animal Initiative, including highlights like:

• One concrete example of how we might improve wild animal welfare (00:00:16)
• How many wild animals are there, and which animals are they? (00:04:24)
• Why might wild animals be suffering? (00:08:40)
• The objection that we shouldn't meddle in nature because nature is good (00:12:25)
• Vaccines for wild animals (00:17:37)
• Gene drive technologies (00:20:50)
• Optimising for high-welfare landscapes (00:24:52)

These highlights are from episode #210 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast: Cameron Meyer Shorb on dismantling the myth that we can’t do anything to help wild animals. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — so if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode!

And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.

Highlights put together by Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong