Welcome to The Vegan Report, my name is Ryan
and have you ever watched a nature documentary
in which a wild animal was filmed struggling
for survival? That's usually a very common trope.
Maybe running from a predator, desperately foraging
for food, or braving bad weather. Well, what
if I told you that we had a moral imperative
to help that animal? In fact, to help all wildlife
creatures, to play an active role in their welfare
even when their sufferings are not traced back
to us. There is an organization called Wild Animal
Initiative that studies this very question. Their
communication director Kat joined me to talk
about the implications of that revolutionary
idea. We discussed how wild animal initiatives
work could be a cure for vegan misentropy, the
deadly risk of feeding birds, my awesome story
of squirrel rescue, contraception for rodents,
and much more. Visit the episode notes to connect
with wild animal initiative. Their work truly
deserves our support and fascination. Wild Animal
Initiative is one of the 10 animal charity evaluators
recommended charities. I committed to interviewing
every charity on that golden list because I'm
really curious to learn who is behind the most
effective efforts to advance the cause of animal
rights. So follow the show and don't miss out
on those conversations. Also, make sure to share
this episode with the vegans you know. Leave
a good review. Thank you. areas that they focus
on is cost -effectiveness, so how many animals
can possibly be helped per dollar. And Wild Animal
Initiative ultimately exists to improve the lives
of wild animals, and so there are so many wild
animals out there, many, many more than there
are farmed animals or anything else. And we have
enough evidence to believe that there's a good
possibility. Many of them are suffering immensely.
And so if we can invest in research to understand
this and ultimately invest in interventions to
improve their lives, then there's so much potential
to do good in the wild that ACE recognizes that
and wants to see that grow. I was so intrigued
by your mission statement and the fact that you
highlights something that we all understand,
which is that wildlife is, of course, suffering.
But, you know, we accept that as if it's the
natural order of things. I think that people,
if they saw like, I don't know, a duck in a bad
situation, like stuck in a fence or something
like that, they would intervene and help that
creature. But they would not, you know, think
actively about the suffering of other creatures
that are not on, you know, in their field of
vision. So it's kind of a very counterintuitive
idea. It's a very revolutionary idea in a way.
Right, right. And even for a lot of vegans, I
think this idea persists of let the wild be wild
and let nature take its course. But If you really
think about it with this dog example, physiologically
and psychologically, there's not much difference,
if any, between a dog and a fox or a coyote or
something like that. All these animals, they
experience fear, they experience pain. To me,
it feels rather cold to say, well, just because
the fox or the coyote is designated as a wild
animal that we should let nature happen, whatever
that means and whatever suffering that might
entail. Rather than stand by and let that happen,
we're interested in figuring out what we can
do to help any sentient animal in the wild. I
also think about this sometimes in a lens of
humanitarian aid because it would sound terrible
if we said to those who suffer from like maybe
a flood happens in their area and puts a bunch
of people in poverty or people in a certain area
of the world are suffering from diseases that
maybe we don't really deal with in the West anymore
or something like that. And it would be terrible
to say, well, nature led to that flood or nature
led to those diseases circulating. And so we'll
just let nature run its course. Instead we employ
technologies and medicines and things, and rescue
efforts to help people who suffer from natural
things. So in the same way, why not extend that
compassion to wild animals? Yes. You know, do
you? Are you, you know, talking about all wildlife,
you know, for instance, insects? Do we include
them in in that list? There is some evidence
that they are sentient, but it's not as evident
as mammals, for instance. So what do you mean
by wildlife? So right now, most of what wild
animal initiative is researching is on vertebrates.
So we're nearly confident or confident that all
vertebrates can feel pain and have these kinds
of emotional and subjective experiences that
to improve their welfare would be a benefit to
them. But we're not exclusively interested in
vertebrates and we are interested in invertebrates
like insects that exhibit some signs of even
possibly being sentient. We're hoping that other
groups will continue that research to confirm
which species are sentient or not. But in the
meantime, we're thinking about this at least.
So we have funded a project about bumblebees
and another one about crickets. So we are interested
in this kind of thing, but until we have more
confirmation of the sentience of the different
insects or different invertebrates, it's not
our primary focus. That's really fascinating.
You mentioned how the vegan community thinks
about you know, wildlife and it's true that we
are mostly focused on animals that are suffering
from, you know, the hands of human beings. How
do you explain, you know, that bias and, you
know, the difference that we make between animals
that might be suffering from natural causes versus
animals that are suffering from our hands as
a consequence of our presence. We only feel responsible
for the animals that are suffering because of
us. So what do you make of that? How do you address
that bias? Well, I think it's natural that that
bias exists. We feel this sense of our own kind
has caused this evil. if it's factory farming
or something. Therefore, we are responsible for
advocating to the members of our own kind to
stop doing that thing and make this evil stop.
So it's very expected that that would exist.
I also think it's just a lot easier to stop the
human caused harms because we know exactly what
they are. We know they're net negative and we
can just say, stop doing that. whether that's
factory farming or something else. But in the
wild, when we're talking about things that wild
animals suffer from that are not directly caused
by humans, it's a lot more complex and it's a
lot harder to figure out what exactly to do.
Because let's say you see a certain type of suffering
that affects one species, you can't just jump
in and intervene without having a lot of research
done on like, well, if I help the members of
this species, how does that affect other species
in their ecosystem that they interact with? Is
it going to be net positive for welfare across
the species in their ecosystem? Or maybe it helps
this one species, but it's actually net negative
for all the species involved. So it's not the
kind of thing. where you can just jump in. And
that's why at Wild Animal Initiative, we are
not yet advocating for any specific interventions
because right now we're still in the research
stage and we're cultivating the growth of this
field to get all these scientists working on
this and get a lot more answers before we just
step in. So we want to do this carefully and
responsibly. Yeah, there's so much we don't know
about wildlife. It's just crazy. There are so
many of them out there, you know, when you're
doing vegan activism, and you're in the animal
rights space, it seems like animals in factory
farming that are like 10 folds more animals in
factory farms than in the wild, but it's not
true. One activist said once in my podcast, a
billion animals are slaughtered every minute.
I thought, no, this is not right. This does not
sound very truthful. But how many wild animals
are there? Well, according to animal charity
evaluators, currently, there are about 112 billion
farmed animals in the system at a given time.
Meanwhile, there are 10 to the 15th power wild
animals out there at a given time. And I'm pretty
sure these numbers only include the sentient
vertebrates in the wild. They're not including
all insects. That would be even a vastly larger
number. So to give you an idea, it's something
like that. And one reason that the farmed animal
number is as large as it is and why you hear
these figures like a billion are killed per day
or whatever it was, is because of fish and small
animals like shrimp in the system. And so if
you think about it, naturally there are more
fish and shrimp in the oceans that are wild than
there are being farmed, because if there were
more being farmed than there were wild, we would
be on track to extinction of all those species.
And in some certainly are, but probably not the
species that are being farmed. So that kind of
helps people get a gauge on this. work toward
visualizing it, but these numbers are so large,
it's like, it's very hard to really wrap our
minds around it. I think going back to that bias
that we have towards wildlife, they're also,
you know, and I mentioned that they're not in
our field of vision, you know, most vegans live
in cities or maybe suburbs, there isn't much,
you know, wildlife to see. in those places. And
so it's easier to ignore them and not think about
them. I saw a picture recently of a tuna fish
that was featured in a Japanese fish market.
And that fish was gigantic. And you think this
was just roaming the oceans. It's not even, you
know, easy to conceptualize. because we only
know our surroundings and the world feels very
much small that way. For sure. I think definitely
when you ask somebody to visualize a wild animal,
what comes to mind is often a big charismatic
animal like that. Maybe not necessarily a tuna.
If a tuna came to mind for somebody, I'd be...
really interested to know why. Maybe they're
working in an industry or something. But for
a lot of people, it's like a lion or an elephant
or something. And that's often because as we're
growing up, these are the animals that we see
in a zoo or we learn about in school, we read
about in children's books. And so that kind of
imprints this idea on us that it's always these
large, really impressive, kind of majestic animals.
But the vast majority of animals in the wild
are much smaller. So working in this field and
this movement, when I ask myself now to visualize
a wild animal, I think of like a sparrow or a
mouse. And these kinds of animals do live in
cities. And to get people to see that like the
pigeon outside your window or the rat that your
landlord is constantly trying to trap or something,
those are wild animals too. they deserve our
consideration. And so if you're sharing a habitat
with those kinds of animals, those are the ones
to think about, you know, maybe we can't all
change the entire world, or we can't all save
every single animal that's out there. But we
all live with some in proximity. Okay, you mentioned
some of the sufferings that those animals encounter.
And I would love to dive into what kinds of sufferings
that are not caused by humans, those wild animals
experience. You know, I think, you know, top
of mind, I can think of wildfires. That's one.
But are we also including like suffering from
predators? Are we also including, you know, suffering
caused by epidemics, you know, maybe parasites,
all of that. Yeah, just to give you kind of a
sense of the kinds of suffering that we're thinking
about. Disease is a big one. So for example,
in the southern US where I live, the government
distributes rabies vaccines to wild animals,
they it's like an edible biscuit that has this
vaccine. enclosed and they just drop them out
of helicopters. And the point of this program
is they don't want wild animals to have rabies
because they don't want rabies to spread to pets
and farmed animals. They don't really care about
the individual experiences of the raccoons or
something like that. But we look at a program
like this and we're like, well, this already
exists. How could we scale this up? How could
we make this more efficient? What other diseases
could we developed vaccines for. And so this
is a really promising area of research would
be vaccines and disease alleviation. Possibly
parasites like you mentioned as well. The elimination
of the new world screw worm is a case study we
point to a lot where it's pretty much been eliminated
from North America. And we don't know everything
about what that meant for the welfare of these
insects themselves, but we can definitely say
that at this point, it was net positive for the
vertebrates involved in this interaction because
they no longer suffer from that parasite in North
America. I think there was a case or two where
they found some evidence that maybe these insects
were coming back, but largely they've been eradicated.
So maybe there's other programs like that that
we can do. Other kinds of suffering could be
just starvation. A lot of animals just starve.
It's hard to find food out there, especially
in the winter and colder parts of the world.
It's just hard. I think we believe that they're
somehow supernaturally equipped to deal with
this, but they're not. They often starve because
they can't find food, so what could we do to
help solve that problem for them? Like you said,
forest fires or wildfires, but there are other
kinds of natural disasters as well. There's flooding
in certain parts of the world that could be cyclical.
And for example, in like Northeast India, the
monsoons come, the national parks flood. Many
animals migrate out of the parks during that
time, but like juveniles often get left behind
or they get stuck or something. So what needs
to be done there? And then you mentioned predation.
So that's an interesting one because we definitely
can't just say, let's end predation. That would
be negative for many animals who are predators.
We don't have an answer to this yet, certainly.
And I do not think the answer would be universal.
It would be like, here's an intervention that
we can just do anywhere for any predator -prey
interaction. And it's going to be good for welfare.
I think there's so many different factors that
we would have to look at. It would be probably
really localized, whatever might happen. But
because that one is so difficult, and it's so
obviously depends on ecological interactions,
it's just not the one we're starting with. There's
so much more to do in the meantime, that that
was kind of on the back burner. How do people
react when you mentioned all of that, you know,
that we can play a positive role in the lives
of wildlife, that all of those sufferings should
not be seen as necessary or part of a natural
balance, and that we can avoid them and improve
the lives of so many sentient beings. How do
people respond to that? There are different reactions.
I think some people are really excited about
it. And to have this to learn that you might
actually be able to play a positive role in the
lives of wild animals when for your whole life
you thought there was nothing that you could
do. And all we can do basically is manage populations
and make sure the ecosystem is quote balanced,
whatever that might even mean. It's very subjective
when you boil it down to the data we actually
have. But to learn that maybe you can do something
and maybe there are improvements that we can
make is really exciting and inspiring for some
people. And then there are others who respond
with resistance and sometimes it comes from fear
of unintended consequences happening as we intervene
and without knowing those answers things can
go terribly wrong and they are correct which
is exactly why we're advocating for so much.
research to be done and for this scientific field
to grow. Other times, I think people react out
of defense in a way. Like, they have always believed
in this idea of a balanced ecosystem. They've
always believed that animals can handle whatever
has come to them. They've evolved to be able
to handle it. And to have your beliefs challenged
can feel not so great at times. But I've seen
plenty of people who hold that response initially
to continue learning about this, approach it
with an open mind and with curiosity and over
time change their minds and decide that maybe
in fact there are ways we can intervene that
are net positive and we don't have to know all
of the answers before we start but we should
know some answers and we can do this really carefully
and So it's, it's encouraging to me to see people
who were initially resistant start to open up.
Yeah, I mean, there is a in the vegan community,
at least there's a lot of misentropy, you know,
humans that are seen as the source of all evil
and the ultimate predators and the sadistic creature
that is doing so much harm to all of the rest,
all other beings on the planet. And I love how
your mission casts such a positive light on humanity
as this possible asset for all other species
on earth. They can depend on us to protect them
against so much harm that they have not evolved
to address. And so I love the positivity of that
message going against that negative misentropy
that is present in this community. Yeah, I do
too. Um, that makes me feel encouraged as a vegan
in this space, you know, as well. This reminds
me of something I read about, I think last year
there was a research team in Antarctica and this
was not a team that had anything to do with wild
animal initiative. they might not even have been
aware that our field is in existence. But they
were studying penguins, and a few penguins got
stuck on some kind of embankment of snow or something
like that, and the rest of their group was able
to get out, but these few were still stuck there.
And the scientists were trying to decide what
to do. Should we just watch and let them remain
trapped and probably starve or maybe get eaten
by one of the predators who go after penguins
in this area or something, or should we intervene?
And they ended up deciding to intervene. It was
easy enough for them to just rescue these penguins
out of that situation. And when they wrote about
this later, they got some critique from people
saying that was unethical to intervene. You're
just there to observe your scientists, whatever.
But they pushed back on that. They wrote this
essay that said, We are humans of this earth.
We're part of nature too. And so our compassion
for the penguins was not unnatural. It was just,
it was part of our nature. And we took advantage
of that to do some good. And that really stuck
with me because I don't think we have to think
of this as humans versus nature. It's just that
we're part of it too. And we have technology
and we have the cognitive abilities and Especially
as AI is advancing, we're going to have way more
that we can do for them. So I try to think of
our compassion as just a natural part of the
human experience. That's that's beautiful. And
it's, you know, it inspires me to share a story.
And I might sound crazy, but I'll share it anyway.
I was once, you know, just You know at home doing
whatever it was summer and all of a sudden there
was this blue Jay that just perched itself on
you know near the window of my home, which was
unusual and Started just screaming at me or you
know, I felt this way anyway and When when I
paid attention to what was happening Um, he kept,
you know, flying away. Um, and then there was
a pool nearby, um, and, and just circling around
the pool. And I felt like he was guiding me to
that pool, like just check what's happening.
And I did, and there was a squirrel just drowning
in the water. And I was able to rescue that squirrel
out of the water. And I thought. am I imagining
stuff? Did that blue jay really used me, like
collaborated with me to save the life of that
squirrel? Is that possible in nature? Well, that's
an amazing story. Thank you for paying attention
and, and considering the possibility that that
was a message. I definitely think this is possible.
I don't want to get sort of like mystical and
say that all the animals want to communicate
with us or something. I don't believe that. But
blue jays particularly are corvids, and corvids
easily imprint on humans. So there's a good chance
that this particular blue jay had been maybe
fed by a human in a backyard or something, or
maybe So I volunteer at a wild bird rehabilitation
center and we have to be really careful with
the blue jays because they will imprint. So maybe
this one had been released from a rehabilitation
center at some point and understood that humans
are sort of there to help or we have hands and
we can do more than the blue jay can do. So there's
a good chance that this one in particular had
some experience in their life that they understood.
the abilities of humans to some extent and maybe
they were trying to come get you. It's definitely
possible. Well, I'm that's reassuring to hear
that, you know, I'm not insane. I'm not going
insane. Okay, you we mentioned a few times that,
you know, word intervention and how people were
hesitant to intervene in and you know that that
word gives a sense that there's this division
between their world and ours. Yet we don't see
building a highway or building a new neighborhood
in a city as an intervention inside the ecosystems.
We don't have the same worry about that. How
do we explain this double standard? If you are
only concerned about wild animal populations,
then you can build a highway, build a neighborhood
in an area where wild animals live and you can
demonstrate it won't alter the populations, therefore
it's fine. And this is typically what happens.
There is often some kind of review process when
a new development is proposed or some kind of
approval process where they have to consult some
kind of local authority on ecology, whether that's
the Department of Natural Resources, the Fish
and Wildlife Service, whatever it might be in
that area. And typically what happens is they're
like, well, all the animals in this area are
just really common species. There's nothing of
conservation concern. So it doesn't really matter
what happens to them. Or they might say, there
are some species of conservation concern, so
we know they like oak trees, and we'll just make
sure that we put some oak trees in this development
so that they still have some habitat. And it's
insufficient, in my opinion. There are so many
other things that could be going on with this
development that could be positive or negative
for welfare. It could be positive if, for example,
all of these houses have yards and all of those
yards are going to have bird feeders and bat
houses or something like that. Perhaps that's
better for welfare on net than if nothing was
in that spot before. Obviously, it could be negative
for welfare if everyone in this neighborhood
has a cat that they let outside and that cat
is going to be predating on birds. Maybe that's
bad for welfare. When you shift your mindset
from thinking about populations to thinking about
individual welfare, it just opens up this whole
other set of questions. I'm presenting some examples,
but I don't even know whether any of those things
is net positive or net negative until we have
studies on those things. to your question what's
what's often happening is they're looking at
population effects they're predicting there won't
really be any or at least won't be bad and so
they're going ahead with that project but what
we want to see happen is that they're also asking
questions about welfare effects and that's like
our our vision for the world is that in any situation
where decisions are being made that involve wild
animals Um, first of all, that the wild animals
are being considered in the decision. And that
second, their welfare specifically is being considered
and not only their population sizes. Yeah. I
mean, even when I hear like diehard environmentalists
talk about, um, conservation and, you know, keeping
a forest intact, they never talk about the welfare
of animals. It's always about safeguarding the
forest. Okay, what for? You know, for the benefit
of... Like, mention the welfare of animals and
they don't seem to make that connection. How
do you explain that? It's often equated with
survival. A lot of people just think if you care
about wild animal welfare, that means you care
about wild animals surviving. They are not the
same thing. You can survive, you can live a very
long time, but you can be completely miserable
as you're going through that life. So welfare
is not just surviving and it's not just avoiding
an early death or something like that, but it's
having a good life, a life that is net positive.
You're having more positive experiences than
negative ones. So that's one thing that happens
a lot is they're just conflating this idea of
welfare with the idea of survival. Another thing
that happens is I think some environmentalists
who might label themselves that way, but maybe
they're not coming at it from necessarily a vegan
mindset or something like that, they truly value
aesthetics of nature. And they have in their
heads some ideal of this pristine landscape and
the animals that live there and what that looks
like. I don't think that's inherently wrong or
unethical, but if it's coming from a place where
that's what you want because you want to see
that and you want to enjoy it, I think that's
not the best motivation. I think we should just
be thinking first about what the animals actually
want. And it's definitely possible that there
could be this beautiful landscape with these
incredible species that inspire us and are beautiful
to see, but all of the animals in that landscape
are unhappy. And so then you have to decide who
you're serving when you decide what to do about
that. Are you going to serve yourself and other
people who value this aesthetic, or are you going
to serve the wild animals who are actually living
in that environment? So that's a couple of things
and a couple of reasons I think that tension
comes up. Yeah, I love that, you know, the concept
of, you know, focusing only on aesthetics. It's
true. It's like the animal has been melted into
the environment, like it's one of the same. And,
you know, it's it's difficult to even when the
wild animal is in front of you to consider their
welfare to consider their sentence. I've I love
hiking, and I've met plenty of deers in my hiking
adventures. And it's only now that I'm thinking,
you know, I would look at them and see how they
were full of mosquitoes or like, insects and,
you know, it felt like they would they were having
a bad time, you know, trying to get rid of all
of those insects, their ears always, you know,
moving. And it's only now that I'm thinking,
well, we could have done something about it,
we could have, you know, alleviate that, that
suffering. But at the time, I was just looking
at that as if, you know, yeah, it's part of nature,
that's, there's nothing we can do. It's just,
you know, tragic way life unfolds. And yeah,
it's interesting that you were able to see like
what your mindset was in the past and how it
has changed. I think that's what we hope will
continue to happen for a lot of people. This
also just kind of brings me back to the example
I gave earlier of if you saw people suffering
from like you know, swarms of mosquitoes or some
other insect, um, you would never just say that's
fine. Like those, those insects live in that
area. That's what you have to deal with. If you're
out there, you know, we, we look for ways to
alleviate this for people. So hopefully the same
can happen for wild animals. Okay. I want to
go back to your organization and the good work
you're doing. Uh, so as you said, right now you're
focusing on research. And one research has been
featured by ACE a lot. They mentioned it a lot
in your in the page where they go into descriptions
of what you're doing, which is let me go find
my notes back. I think it was a contraception
for mouse, something like that. What's the exact
title? Well, yeah, um, rodent. contraception.
Rodent contraception. Thank you. Uh, so what
is this all about? So there are some interventions
that we think we're pretty close to being able
to confirm whether it would be net positive for
the welfare of the animals involved. And there
are others that we think are much farther off.
We need much, much more information before we
can say, but rodent contraception is one of the
ones that we think we're pretty close to and
pretty close could be like five to ten years.
This could be a situation where we have enough
research done, we have enough pilot studies done,
and maybe some municipalities actually start
to employ this on a larger scale. There have
been some pilot studies in the past, but there
are issues with the way the studies were done,
or they didn't have sufficient data to make a
call one way or the other. So we're still having
to do some research here. So it's a big area
of interest for us because there are many, many,
many mice and rats in the world that live in
cities or live in other areas with proximity
to people, and people consider them pests. And
so right now, the standard solution is to use
these anti -coagulant poisons, which are just
a terrible, terrible way to die, it seems like.
I think the average person believes that the
rat just kind of like eats this poison and like
drops dead on the spot. And that is not what
happens at all. Instead, they eat the poison
and they go on with their life for several days
up to potentially like a week or more. And throughout
that whole time, they are bleeding out because
that's what these poisons do. And so it's like
this terrible way to go and it causes neurological
problems as well. So we would love to see these
poisons just be phased out and instead some other
way of managing rodent populations that's actually
good for their welfare. Maybe not even simply
neutral for their welfare, but actually better
for their welfare than if there was no intervention
at all. So contraception seems like a great way
to go because there are no animals suffering
or dying. There are simply fewer animals being
born. And it's also possible that there are certain
things about not having to expend energy as a
parent or not having to deal with conflicts between,
especially with mice, like the male mice often
attack juveniles that they believe are from another
litter like that weren't their own children or
whatever. So there could be some like welfare
implications there. So if we can prevent many
rodent births from happening, there are several
ways that perhaps this could be positive for
welfare for all involved. So we've done some
preliminary studies just on the viability of
this. We haven't done any. field studies yet
at Wild Animal Initiative. But the studies we've
done so far have shown that, yeah, we're pretty
confident this could be a good thing. So our
next step is right now we are trying to fundraise
for an open innovation competition, which is
going to be in collaboration with a group called
Conservation X Labs and also the Bot Steber Institute
for Wildlife Fertility Control. Both of those
groups have expertise in relevant areas as well.
And so we're all teaming up to host this competition
where researchers can pitch their projects in
this area, and they can win a large prize, essentially
a grant, to move forward with their project.
So what we're fundraising for is that prize money
right now. And we're hoping it would be substantial
enough to make a lot of progress on this. So
Wild Animal Initiative has given out many grants
before. It's like one of our core programs and
we'll continue doing that. Our grants are typically
up to $200 ,000 per project depending on the
need, but we're expecting this to be a prize
of like a million dollars or more so that we
can just like make this exponentially faster
than our typical route. So hopefully that competition
can happen later this year if we're able to finish
our fundraising for it and then we'll see where
it goes, but we think this is not too far off
as an intervention. That's amazing. This has
the impact of, you know, changing the lives of
like millions and millions of creatures all around
the world. This is, and you know, it's striking
how you'll have to, at some point you'll have
to sell that to the general public, you know,
can we launch this contraception, you know, propagation
campaign. And it's weird how I feel that, you
know, the public would be more open to an extermination
campaign of all the rodents in their city, then
you know, a contraception campaign. But yeah,
that's extraordinary. Can we can we participate
in that fundraiser and help raise funds? Of course,
yeah, anybody listening, if you're interested,
can contact us and we can talk about if you want
to lead fundraising efforts for this or if you
want to give directly to support it. We'd love
to hear from you, of course. So for sure, check
that out. And hang on, because you just said
something I was going to respond to. What did
you say? And as for what you were saying about
public perception, I worry about this as a communications
professional, I worry that do we need to do some
messaging first to change public perception of
rodents? But we might not have to, because in
most cases, a city is going to set policies for
how, quote, pest control is done in their city
and what products are available and what products
are banned and things like that. So it's possible
that We only need to change the minds of key
stakeholders like that. And that can be done
without them caring about rats at all. If we
can show that economically, this is a better
thing for their city and for property managers.
So that's really the key part of this that we
need to show. This is cost effective or it's
on par with the products they already use or
something like that. Yeah, because we don't look
at wild creatures. true, you know, neutral lens,
some of them have like a positive value and others
and negative ones. And rodents have a clear negative
value, you know, in in our eyes, like, I remember
being a kid and wanting a rat, a pet rat. And
my mom just being against it, like having visible
disgust for that idea, not even the creature,
just the idea of having that creature in the
house as a bet. So yeah, any strategy to not
face that is, I think, a good strategy. people
don't necessarily despise farmed animals, but
they see them as separate somehow. They see them
as those are for eating. And so they also see
rats as those are for exterminating. And so it's
a similar barrier of changing some minds. But
maybe in this case, the only minds we have to
change are the stakeholders, which is a big difference
from farmed animal advocacy. where I think to
end factory farming, you do actually have to
change public opinion. Interesting. What other
studies are right now in the conception phase
that we haven't heard of yet and that you find
exciting? We have funded a project in the UK
where they're studying backyard bird feeding.
And most people who love birds, myself included,
might assume that feeding birds is just a good
thing. Especially in the winter, food is scarce,
but food out there, that's surely good for them.
But actually, bird feeding, if you're not doing
it well, if you're not cleaning out your feeders,
if you're not careful, can be negative for them
if it's leading to a situation where they can
spread disease more quickly. because they're
all coming to the same food source. It's like
if you were eating from a buffet where someone
who was sick had just sneezed all over the food
or something like that. It can be kind of bad.
And especially with bird flu running rampant
in the wild right now, it's not so much a problem
among songbirds. It's mostly birds of the water,
but all birds are included. And so what if you
accidentally spreading bird flu by trying to
feed the birds in your backyard or something
like that. That would be really bad. So this
team in the UK is studying, has been collecting
data over like the past 10 years on more than
50 backyard -like sites where there are bird
feeders set up. And so they're collecting many
different kinds of data in these sites and they
have this large data set. So the project we funded
is for them to try to validate the use of eye
temperature as an indicator of the welfare of
several common bird species in the UK. And so
if they can find that indicator to be useful
as they're hypothesizing, then they can use their
new findings together with the data they've been
collecting for the past 10 years and try to figure
out some insights about how bird lovers can set
up their gardens to be more enjoyable for the
birds that visit them or in other words, they
can set them up to be positive for the welfare
of the birds that visit them. So this isn't the
biggest issue facing wild animals for sure, but
it's a really cool practical use case and hopefully
we'll be able to see more of those things over
time. So after the research portion of that is
done, they're planning to kind of like disseminate
some information among the general public in
the UK to let people know what they can do in
their own backyards to improve welfare for wild
birds. The vast majority though of the studies
that we funded or that we're doing internally
are at a really basic level of like we don't
even know yet how to measure welfare for most
animals, or what that means, or how to observe
whether an animal is actually happy or not. So
a lot of the studies are in the early stages
of validating indicators of welfare, and sometimes
those indicators are behavioral. So if you see
an animal sleeping more than usual, what might
that mean about their welfare? Or They are trying
a different foraging technique than you've seen
before. What might that say about their welfare?
If they're showing more stress than usually,
it could be a physiological measurement as well
of their stress levels. Does that say anything
about their welfare? It doesn't always. Sometimes
stress is not necessarily bad. So there's a lot
of things that we're looking at to try to figure
out. we have to be able to measure this in some
way before we can make any conclusions. So Wild
Animal Initiative's current field study is trying
to do this for house sparrows, which are super,
super common species all over the world. If you
live in... Europe or North America, definitely
you've seen them. So look up a picture and you'll
recognize it immediately. It's this bird that
is usually in small groups hopping around in
a parking lot or something trying to steal your
french fries. They thrive in urban environments.
So we're interested in them partially because
there are just so many of them in the world.
They're one of the most common bird species that
if we could figure out something that we can
do for their welfare, then there are many individuals
that could be helped by that. But we're secondly
interested in them because they are often used
as an indicator species in scientific studies,
which means whatever you find out in a study
about house sparrows, you can reasonably extrapolate
to other kinds of sparrows or other kinds of
songbirds. And because they're so common, they're
just really easy to find and study. So many scientists
study house sparrows, even if they're not necessarily
interested in specifically house sparrows. So
our study, hopefully, will be able to validate
some indicators of their welfare, which could
be certain vocalizations that they make, or other
behavioral things that they are demonstrating
in a backyard situation. I also feed birds outside
and I never thought about you know, disease control.
I should have, you know, I'm aware that there
are, you know, diseases going on, avian flu and
all of that. And I wash my hands after, you know,
handling the food thing for the birds. But I
never thought that I could be participating in
spreading those diseases by by feeding the birds.
Earlier, you also mentioned cats and how cats
can predate on local bird species. And that's
also something we don't talk much about in the
vegan community, but also outside. You have a
bunch of cats. First of all, you're feeding them
the products of... factory farming, that's a
problem. But the other problem is you're letting
them go out of the house and just terrorizing
the local FUNA. And so, yeah, there needs to
be an organization addressing that and making
us aware of those problems. Right. So personally,
I love cats. I have two. Their names are sparrow
and wren. I named them after birds specifically
because of this I want to show like I love both
sides of this ecological interaction And one
is not more important than the other but What
can we do as cat owners right to cat? That's
a standard term. I guess what can we do as cat
caretakers? To ensure the welfare of our cats
and also the welfare of the birds or mice that
are outside so I do think it's important for
cats to get some outside time. It's like part
of their desire of just their natural drive to
be outside and see prey animals. So I am lucky
enough that mine. took to the harness really
easily. So I take them on walks and we watch
birds, but we will never come close enough to
catch a bird. Other people have screened in porches
or they can build a structure outside for their
cats to be there safely or something like that.
It definitely takes work. It is not easy. And
cats are not, they're not like a passive animal
to have in your household. It requires a lot
of work to make sure that they're happy. But
yes, I think from my experience working in the
bird hospital, volunteering there, the top three
reasons that birds come in are they were caught
by a cat, they hit a window, or they were hit
by a car. And so it's a lot more common than
I realized even as a cat lover until I see so
many birds coming in who have been caught. So
it's a big issue for sure. Thank you for the
reminder. One last question. This time about
what you're doing on a macro level. So I have
this mental framework in terms of the welfare
of animals, but also humans. I think that as
humans, how we start caring about our family
and our tribe and then, you know, it's a concentric
circles. And then at some point we decided to
care about animals, but not all animals. And
so there was the vegetarian movement and now
it's veganism. And I really feel like you're
the next chapter. You're the next like concentric
circle. Now it's time to talk about wildlife
as a whole. not just the animals that we have
domesticated for animal exploitation, but also
those that we don't necessarily interact with
that are far away in some forests or, as you
said, in the city, but hidden from us, like rodents.
Do you feel that way that you're really the next
chapter in that movement towards including more
and more creatures in our circle of compassion?
In a way, definitely. I do see it that way. And
what I hope is not the case is that we must end
factory farming before we actually do things
for wild animals. So I think it's not linear
in that sense of what we're actually going to
do. But in the way you're describing it about
the order in which we're expanding our moral
circles, I do think that is the case. I read
a paper that came out toward the end of 2025
about the history of conservation and the driving
values that were kind of guiding conservation
efforts through the decades. And it went back
more than a century. And early on in conservation,
the primary interest was like, we want to make
sure that the animals we would like to hunt are
still around. And so we're going to conserve
the habitat that those animals need. And we're
going to manage populations in a way that makes
sure we still have animals that we want to hunt.
And then that mindset was dealt away with. And
then it became over time more about the aesthetics
of conserving habitat. And then it was more about
biodiversity and maintaining this kind of like
ecosystem balance that we somehow believe in,
even though we don't often know what that means
exactly. But we want to see all the different
butterfly species and we want to see all the
different bird species. And so biodiversity was
really big. And then as climate change became
more of an issue, it was like, you know, kind
of like combating climate change and conserving
nature and protecting it from climate change.
But what this paper concluded was that the next
circle of motivation, it was like this chart
of circles on a timeline. And the next one is
welfare. And these people cited a paper by Wild
Animal Initiative, but they had never contacted
us. We don't know them. They're not in our own
little network. And so they had concluded based
on what they were seeing at large across the
field that the next driving motivation for conservation
could be welfare. And this is a huge deal that
these external scientists were seeing this as
well. And so it's not only the vegan movement,
I think, but it's also possibly the general public,
possibly scientists who have this on their minds.
And to see where we might go with this is really
exciting. It is that's exciting. But you know,
do you feel like by pushing forward your agenda,
positive, amazing agenda, sometimes, you know,
agenda has this negative connotation. Do you
feel like, you know, you're the next extreme
radical people so vegans were considered radical
but now let's talk about rodent contraception
and that's you know the next which makes veganism
less you know radical of an idea um but at the
same time we don't want you to take the role
of that marginal uh actor i would worry about
that Especially as a comms person, as I've said
earlier, I think about these kinds of things,
these messaging and branding issues, but I haven't
seen that to be the case. I haven't seen scientists
perceiving us that way. So far, overwhelmingly,
there's been a positive response. Some are resistant,
especially in ecology because I think a lot of
what we do brings up big questions about the
actual effects of their work when they have subscribed
to these ideas of balance and biodiversity for
their whole careers. But the vast majority of
scientists we've interacted with are really open
to this, and many of them are saying they always
wanted a place to do this kind of research, but
it didn't exist before. And so they're excited
that now it does. And so they're the ones who
are really going to take this and run with it.
And so they're opinions are the ones that I'm
most concerned about right now. And they're largely
looking at this positively. So we'll see what
happens next. And it's possible that a portion
of the general public would see us as radical
or extreme or something. But I think if we stick
to our values of curiosity and questioning our
assumptions and using the scientific method and
involving many, many people who are not vegan,
who are not animal advocates. You know, it's
a really inclusive kind of movement. I think
those kinds of things can help us keep those
opinions at bay. Amazing. Kat, did you want to
add something before we stop the recording? I
don't think so. Yeah, I think we're good. That
was an incredible conversation. I'm so happy
to have met you and thank you so much for your
insights, for the answers to my questions and
for having taken the time to discuss your incredible
work. Thank you so much for all that you're doing.
Thank you everyone for listening. I kindly invite
you to share this podcast with the vegans you
know. Let's encourage more people to take action.
Again, thank you so much for caring, and I will
see you next Tuesday for a new episode.