Eckerström Liedholm Simon, Hecht Luke, Elliott Vittoria
Wild Animal Initiative, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.
Department of Biosciences at Durham University, Durham, England, United Kingdom.
Bioscience. 2024 Sep 11;74(10):695-700. doi: 10.1093/biosci/biae071. eCollection 2024 Oct.
To date, research on the welfare impacts of wildlife contraceptives has mostly been focused on the potential harms of contraceptives. However, there are compelling theoretical reasons to expect direct and indirect welfare benefits of wildlife contraceptives. These positive welfare effects would be experienced by more than just the treated individuals, because per capita resource availability will increase with decreasing numbers of individuals sharing a resource. In the present article, we discuss the potential for wildlife contraceptives to alleviate resource competition and their associated negative welfare effects at different scales. These effects are expected to vary across contexts and would presumably be stronger when wildlife contraceptives are used with the explicit purpose of improving wild animal welfare. The potential for considerable welfare gains for wildlife through the targeted use of contraceptives highlights the importance of both species-specific studies on the welfare benefits of wildlife contraceptives and further research on the links between population dynamics and wild animal welfare.
迄今为止，关于野生动物避孕药具对福利影响的研究主要集中在避孕药具的潜在危害上。然而，有令人信服的理论依据可以预期野生动物避孕药具会带来直接和间接的福利效益。这些积极的福利影响将不仅仅由接受治疗的个体体验到，因为随着共享一种资源的个体数量减少，人均资源可得性将会增加。在本文中，我们讨论了野生动物避孕药具在不同尺度上缓解资源竞争及其相关负面福利影响的潜力。预计这些影响会因具体情况而异，并且当野生动物避孕药具被明确用于改善野生动物福利时，可能会更强。通过有针对性地使用避孕药具为野生动物带来可观福利收益的潜力凸显了开展关于野生动物避孕药具福利效益的特定物种研究以及进一步研究种群动态与野生动物福利之间联系的重要性。
