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- Title
The ethics of hunting.
- Authors
Bateson, Patrick
- Abstract
The article presents comments of the author on the ethics of hunting. The author has been involved in an investigation about the impact of hunting with hounds on the welfare of red deer. As a result of the author's report, the National Trust, which owns vast tracts of the English countryside, immediately prohibited such hunting on its land. A justification for hunting with hounds is that this institution conserves deer. The recreational interest in hunting is the driving force in keeping the number of red deer at their present levels. According to the author, although hunting with hounds includes a welfare cost for individual red deer, the conservation benefits for the local population of deer may be considerable. It is argued that any decision to ban hunting by legislation must weigh the welfare of individual animals against the conservation of the local population together with the economic, recreational, and social benefits to humans. Animal welfare activists should accept the need for some culling, and wildlife managers should accept a moral obligation to use the method that causes the least suffering.
- Subjects
HUNTING ethics; ANIMAL rights; RED deer; ANIMAL welfare &; ethics; HOUNDS; ANIMAL specialists; ANIMAL welfare laws; ANIMAL rights activists; ANIMAL welfare
- Publication
Frontiers in Ecology & the Environment, 2005, Vol 3, Issue 7, p393
- ISSN
1540-9295
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1890/1540-9295(2005)003[0392:TEOH]2.0.CO;2