Wild Animal Suffering

The number of animals in the wild is enormous and their lives are often short and brutal. They suffer predation, disease, natural disasters, starvation, dehydration, parasites, accidents, and more. Of course, wild animals are not moral agents and so, whilst they are harmed by their coming into existence, cannot be morally accountable for procreating. As such, we believe this issue cannot be considered to fall within the scope of antinatalism and is therefore an independent issue.

The issue of wild animal suffering has been included as one of our cause areas, however, because we believe that it has a unique relationship with antinatalism. If humans were to cease bringing sentient beings into existence, the voluntary extinction of humans and the extinction of domesticated animals would be very likely to result as a matter of consequence. This would leave the suffering of wild animals unmitigated and the inclusion of this issue as a cause area is a recognition of this fact. We believe that, whilst this issue does not fall within the scope of antinatalism, it is nonetheless important for antinatalists to consider when they decide how they want to do good.

Additionally, there are interventions that may be of particular interest to antinatalists to both support and oppose. An intervention to support could be the use of contraception and the prevention of a new being from ever coming into existence – and has been proposed as an alternative to culling pigeon and rat populations in urban areas. Further, an intervention to oppose calls for rewilding (spreading ecosystems to areas where there currently are none) as a (partial) solution to the climate crisis may prevent significant increases in the number of sentient beings coming into existence.