Peter Keilty is a reader of Conservation Sense and Nonsense because he shares my interest in a constructive approach to conservation that is less deadly and destructive than current approaches often are. Peter has written an article about the need for a more compassionate approach to conservation, which he has kindly offered as a guest post for Conservation Sense and Nonsense.
Peter grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, which he sarcastically describes as a “hotbed of religious tolerance and progressive values.” He moved to New York City in 2004 to pursue a legal career and has lived part of the year in the small city of Bee Cave, near Austin, Texas since 2012.
His childhood experience in beekeeping inspired him to return to that interest when bee colony collapse became a public concern. He keeps a honeybee hive on his small rural property primarily as a teaching tool to tell children about bees and how to help them by not using pesticides in their gardens, for example. He takes his show on the road to the annual Books and Bees Festival in Bee Cave.
Peter helped to convince the city of Bee Cave to pass a resolution that gives bees and pollinators honorary citizenship to encourage people to rethink their relationships with animals. He also does some pro bono legal work in the realm of animal personhood and the rights of nature.
Peter Keilty is a passionate defender of wildlife and he walks the talk. I am grateful that he has selected Conservation Sense and Nonsense for publication of his article about the need for a more compassionate approach to conservation.
-Conservation Sense and Nonsense
(Don’t) Kill Them With Kindness
Crouching over her fresh kill, a little girl inspected the wreckage of a life ended. “I got it, Mommy!” she triumphed. Her mother congratulated her in the distracted way of an exhausted parent, before leading the child away. It was 2023 in New York City and the much-maligned lanternfly was at the forefront of public consciousness. Its “invasion” promised destruction not only to valuable crops, such as grapes, but also to the nation’s hardwood forests. If you like wine and trees, we were told, these guys are bad news. At the time I worried that the official response would be the mass application of pesticides, which would have posed significant collateral damage to other insects. Thankfully, this didn’t come to pass, but the long-term effects of the squash-on-sight policy, touted as a solution, could turn out to have a half-life much longer than any insecticide.
The public, rather than taking to the task grudgingly or – a boy can dream – with a measure of regret, jumped in feet-first. Bug-squishing competitions [1] became the norm and an app, Squishr, helped the smartphone generation “turn bug squishing into a game”. Many urban children’s first meaningful encounter with a wild creature may have been through the act of killing – even the youngest were taught not to spare a thought for this latest arrival, whose unwanted presence on our shores rendered its life worthless. That this generation might not grow into bug-loving adults seems more than possible, and the lesson it has imparted – the devaluation of lives based on national origin – is more insidious still.
The fervor barely had time to die down before studies, led by Penn State [2], began to indicate that lanternflies do not pose significant risk to hardwood forests or even to homeowners’ ornamental trees. The public’s bloody work to save native trees on public lands had been unnecessary, but private agriculture was grateful. Every hateful, non-native bug ground underfoot had bought some time for their valued, non-native crops. Studies and articles on the issue or cruelty, however, were harder to locate. I initially put this down to the nature of the animal in question – not only an interloper but also a bloodless, hard-shelled insect. Surely we would not kill fellow mammals with such impunity.
Under New Zealand’s Predator Free 2050 initiative the public are engaged in a nationwide effort to “despatch” stoats, possums and even the UK’s most cherished animal, the hedgehog. As an archipelago that evolved without mammals, Aotearoa (the country’s indigenous name) became dominated by a varied suite of bird life, many of whom had no defenses against wily mammals, due to their flightless nature. The country has set itself the, some conservationists argue, highly unrealistic target of eliminating every one of these predators in a matter of decades. As a young nation, it is argued that this mobilization has helped consolidate their national identity by uniting them against a common group of “enemies,” much like in wartime. Ecologist and Kiwi Jamie Steer [3] is one of the few dissenting voices among his country folk. He has observed that the country’s crusade against introduced species which displace natives does not apply to all “invaders” – deer, ducks and trout are not targeted for extermination since they provide jobs and revenue. Unlike those who take a contrarian position to advance powerful interests, Mr. Steer has gained nothing from making his observations public – rather, he has faced ostracism by his peers, as well as verbal abuse and threats from members of the public. Author Laura McLauchlan [4], too, felt a dizzying level of cognitive dissonance when researching hedgehogs in both the UK and her native New Zealand. In England, her care for the creatures brought respect and acceptance from the community. Back home she was mocked and chided for daring to suggest that the annihilation of a long-established animal may not be the only way to move forward.
How could it be that questioning environmental orthodoxy, to ask if we might incorporate elements of compassion, could open someone to mockery and threats of physical violence? Attitudes toward the environment, although shaped by science, still require a certain level of belief. Once beliefs become entrenched, we feel invested in them and are loath to consider that there may be viable alternatives. James Murray of Business Green, writing for the Guardian [5] stated that: “Some environmentalists are guilty of the worst excesses of religion. There is a tendency to drown out legitimate criticism in the most forceful of terms (and) and inclination toward proselytization that can alienate many people…” Some of my encounters have been similarly fraught, especially in the no-holds-barred variety of discourse that is common online. When suggesting alternatives to the language used in comments about non-native species such as “they deserve murder” and “smash them with prejudice” the responses ran the gamut from dismissing me as a “hippie” to suggesting my mental health was not in order – “I hope you get better” read one comment, dripping with faux-concern.
Perhaps in response to such views, there now exists a nascent movement dubbed “compassionate conservation” which prioritizes kindness and views it as a strength, rather than a weakness. It is “an interdisciplinary field which promotes the treatment of all wildlife with respect, justice and compassion” [6] by combining conservation and animal welfare, two disciplines long viewed as being at odds. In any conservation action there will necessarily be winners and losers, and it has been an ongoing frustration for me that I operate in a field with no concrete “right” decisions. In choosing kindness as a compass point to guide our actions, however, it may be possible to navigate our dealings with other species while causing the least amount of harm.
“Kindness” can be interpreted in many ways. For some, it could mean refusing to allow imperiled species to wink out of existence. For others, it could be tolerance or even acceptance of our other-than-human neighbors, regardless of their national origin. Actions such as glorifying the act of killing, prioritizing strict genetic purity or placing populations over the suffering of individuals, however, are unlikely to fall under its aegis. The US Fish and Wildlife Service (I use the word “service” reluctantly) has drawn widespread criticism for its plan to kill almost half a million barred owls in order to help spotted owls, which are being crowded out of their home range. Both animals are native to the United States, but the barred owl has been able to migrate west and encroach on its smaller relative. Perhaps due to the extreme charisma of owls, as well as the sickeningly high number of planned kills, this proposal has drawn outcry regardless of its, presumably, well-meaning intent. “Sparred” owls, the hybrid offspring of the two species, are also devalued due to their “impure” nature and are routinely “culled” – a word which hides behind a veneer of kindness.
Valuing populations over individuals has no analogy in the human world, save for in some of the darkest periods of our history. We do not console ourselves over the loss of thousands of human lives to war or disease by noting that, nonetheless, a “robust” population of that racial or ethnic group still survives.
Valuing genetic purity or denouncing the admixture of different races evokes disgust when it is applied to our own species, and yet it is a cornerstone of modern conservation. When we place value on populations rather than individuals it is easy to justify cruelty to achieve our goals. Journalist Emma Marris argues that animals care nothing for genetic “purity” or even the continuation of their species as a fixed, unchanging snapshot in time – their worries, like ours, are focused on raising their young and making it through the day. It is unlikely an animal would ever view its death in a positive light, despite whatever lofty justifications we might make.
A kindness-centered approach to conservation will garner attacks from many directions. It will draw derision for its softness, perhaps even femininity, in that it demands that the element of suffering be factored into decisions of policy. It will be called vague, and too open to interpretation, and yet it provides a powerful compass in navigating an uncertain world, where doing our best for an animal might not actually be the best thing for that creature. Kindness applies not only in respect to how we treat our other-than-human kin, but also in our willingness to enter into respectful, open- minded discourse with each other about the future of these creatures. Being able to communicate without clinging to unhelpful beliefs will be crucial in forging a healthy future. In a complex world we can never know if we are doing quite the “right” thing, but decisions which prioritize kindness may temper our actions and help avoid cruel and, ultimately, ineffective measures. Kindness is truly viral, and it freely transfers from our interactions with other species to our dealings with each other. After all, can you think of a time that you practiced kindness and it steered you wrong? Lending money to family members does not count – that one is on you.
Peter Keilty
beesforall@gmail.com
Footnotes:
3. https://independent.academia.edu/JamieSteer/
4. McLauchlan, Laura. 2024. Hedgehogs, Killing and Kindness. MIT Press.
5. Murray, James. 2012. Environmentalism is Not a Religion. The Guardian.
Update: According to the NY Times, the population of spotted lantern flies has virtually disappeared from many neighborhoods in NY City. NYT doesn’t give the campaign to literally stomp-out lantern flies credit for this disappearance of lantern flies. They offer a few other explanations, but none is more credible than this explanation for the waxing and waning of so-called “invasions” from the book, The Light Eaters:
“Natural systems are really complex. [There are always many variables operating simultaneously in nature.] Every single shift in these variables appears to cause a shift in the makeup of the neighborhoods. A species that was formerly a minority becomes dominant, a dominant species suddenly becomes rare. No single species wins for very long, and never long enough to take over or eliminate their neighbors…This isn’t survival of the fittest in the traditional sense. Or rather, it is survival of the fittest, but “fittest” here doesn’t mean what we thought it meant—it’s not about whoever manages to demolish their neighbors. This is more like survival for a while, until something changes.”
Humans need to be more patient with nature to solve problems for herself. Instead of a full-on killing campaign, usually fueled by pesticides, humans need to step back and watch nature heal itself.
Webmaster, Conservation Sense and Nonsense
September 22, 2024
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