Veterinary Medical Ethics Déontologie vétérinaire Ethical question of the month — October 2014 You are a third year veterinary student having supper on a Friday evening with a classmate. She gets a call and you overhear her arranging a visit to a farm to pregnancy check and vaccinate some cows in the morning. You apologize for listening in and ask if you can come along. The next day you meet her at her home in the country from where she commutes to veterinary school every day. You drive up the road to a neighbor who has all the cows shut in and ready to be worked. You had assumed the local veterinarian would be in attendance but soon realize it is just you and your classmate doing the work. You finish in a couple of hours and note that your classmate accepts a bottle of wine, but no other payment in exchange for the service. You are very pleased to have had the opportunity to get this hands-on experience but are a bit nervous doing the work without veterinary oversight. You mention this to your classmate and she says she knows it is technically wrong but she only does it for a few close neighbors and helping each other out is just how things are done in the country. You now feel complicit in what you realize could be viewed as unprofessional conduct. How should you respond?
Question de déontologie du mois — Octobre 2014 Vous êtes un étudiant de troisième année en médecine vétérinaire et, le vendredi soir, vous êtes au restaurant pour souper avec une camarade de classe. Elle reçoit un appel et vous l’entendez organiser une visite à la ferme pour vérifier une gestation et vacciner des vaches le lendemain matin. Vous vous excusez d’avoir écouté la conversation et vous lui demandez si vous pouvez l’accompagner. Le lendemain, vous la rencontrez à sa maison à la campagne d’où elle se rend tous les jours à l’école de médecine vétérinaire. Vous empruntez le chemin pour vous rendre chez un voisin qui a mis les vaches dans un enclos afin qu’elles soient prêtes pour l’examen. Vous aviez présumé que le vétérinaire local serait présent, mais vous réalisez bientôt qu’il n’y a que vous et votre camarade de classe pour faire le travail. Vous terminez le travail après deux heures et vous remarquez que votre camarade de classe accepte une bouteille de vin, mais aucune autre forme de paiement pour les services. Vous êtes heureux d’avoir eu l’occasion d’obtenir cette expérience pratique, mais vous êtes un peu nerveux de réaliser le travail sans la supervision d’un vétérinaire. Vous mentionnez ce fait à votre camarade de classe qui dit qu’elle sait que c’est techniquement interdit, mais qu’elle fait ce travail seulement pour quelques voisins qu’elle connaît bien et que, d’ailleurs, tout le monde s’entraide à la campagne. Vous vous sentez maintenant complice d’un comportement qui, vous le comprenez bien, pourrait être considéré comme une conduite non professionnelle. Comment devriez-vous répondre?
Responses to the case presented are welcome. Please limit your reply to approximately 50 words and forward along with your name and address to: Ethical Choices, c/o Dr. Tim Blackwell, Veterinary Science, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, 6484 Wellington Road 7, Unit 10, Elora, Ontario N0B 1S0; telephone: (519) 846-3413; fax: (519) 846-8178; e-mail: [email protected] Suggested ethical questions of the month are also welcome! All ethical questions or scenarios in the ethics column are based on actual events, which are changed, including names, locations, species, etc., to protect the confidentiality of the parties involved.
Les réponses au cas présenté sont les bienvenues. Veuillez limiter votre réponse à environ 50 mots et nous la faire parvenir par la poste avec vos nom et adresse à l’adresse suivante : Choix déontologiques, a/s du Dr Tim Blackwell, Science vétérinaire, ministère de l’Agriculture, de l’Alimentation et des Affaires rurales de l’Ontario, 6484, chemin Wellington 7, unité 10, Elora (Ontario) N0B 1S0; téléphone : (519) 846-3413; télé copieur : (519) 846-8178; courriel : [email protected] Les propositions de questions déontologiques sont toujours bienvenues! Toutes les questions et situations présentées dans cette chronique s’inspirent d’événements réels dont nous modifions certains éléments, comme les noms, les endroits ou les espèces, pour protéger l’anonymat des personnes en cause.
Use of this article is limited to a single copy for personal study. Anyone interested in obtaining reprints should contact the CVMA office ([email protected]) for additional copies or permission to use this material elsewhere. L’usage du présent article se limite à un seul exemplaire pour étude personnelle. Les personnes intéressées à se procurer des réimpressions devraient communiquer avec le bureau de l’ACMV ([email protected]) pour obtenir des exemplaires additionnels ou la permission d’utiliser cet article ailleurs. CVJ / VOL 55 / OCTOBER 2014
917
D É O N TO LO G I E V É T É R I N A I R E
Ethical question of the month — July 2014 Natural selection maintains balance in most wildlife populations. “Survival of the fittest” is seldom an issue for members of the public concerned about animal welfare. However, there is often strong opposition if the decision is made to cull animals when there is an imbalance caused by the disproportionate increase of one species within an area or ecosystem. Examples of cull programs that have generated heated opposition include the feral rabbits on the campus of the University of Victoria, wild horses in Alberta, moose on the island of Newfoundland, feral dogs in isolated northern communities, and Canada geese on golf courses and around airports. In most of these cases the target species has no natural predators within the area in which it is problematic. The resulting population imbalance causes harm to the overpopulating species as well as to other members of the bionetwork. Can shooting, trapping, or poisoning all or most of an “invasive” species be justified on an ethical basis?
Question de déontologie du mois — Juillet 2014 La sélection naturelle maintient l’équilibre dans la plupart des populations sauvages. La «survivance des plus aptes» est rarement une question envisagée par les membres du public lorsqu’ils pensent au bien-être animal. Cependant, lorsqu’il se produit un déséquilibre causé par la hausse disproportionnée d’une espèce dans une région ou un écosystème, la décision d’éliminer des animaux soulève souvent un tollé. Citons, à titre d’exemples de programmes d’élimination qui ont suscité une forte opposition, les lapins féraux sur le campus de l’Université de Victoria, les chevaux sauvages en Alberta, les orignaux dans l’île de Terre-Neuve, les chiens féraux dans les collectivités isolées du Nord et les bernaches du Canada sur les terrains de golf et à proximité des aéroports. Dans la plupart de ces cas, l’espèce ciblée n’a aucun prédateur naturel dans la région où elle cause des problèmes. Le déséquilibre qui en résulte nuit à l’espèce en surpopulation ainsi qu’aux autres membres du réseau biologique. Peut-on justifier, du point de vue de l’éthique, l’élimination d’une espèce «envahissante» à l’aide de fusils, de pièges ou d’empoisonnement?
Culling invasive species — A comment This topic brings several questions to mind: 1) Who caused the “population imbalance”? (Humans); 2) Would the culling fix this imbalance? (Probably not); 3) Aren’t humans the “invasive” species? (Technically yes); 4) Do these species pose a serious threat to humans? (At most, a nuisance); 5) How can veterinarians, who are supposed to save animals, morally justify these cullings when these species are not ill or dying? (In fact the opposite, they are thriving).
In the words of the late Farley Mowat: “I believe that only Nature can do it and that man, despite all of his brains, just gets in the way.” Michael Belanger, Barrie, Ontario
An ethicist’s commentary on culling invasive species There are unquestionably situations in which proliferation of certain sorts of animals represents a genuinely mortal danger to humans. Chickens may serve as a zoonotic reservoir of bird flu viruses; rattlesnakes have proliferated sufficiently in certain areas so as to represent a danger to homeowners, particularly when they have mutated so as to lose the warning rattle; geese who live and fly near an airport can well become a source of airline crashes when they are sucked into jet engines. In such cases, where the situation is “us or them,” there may be no other alternative than killing them, though one should always thoroughly examine other possible alternatives that do not involve extermination. On the other hand, there are many more cases in which the population’s being out of control is attributable to human action undertaken with no sense of possible deleterious consequences. For example, there are many areas where deer populations have exceeded sustainable limits as a result of ill-advised “wildlife management” policies aimed at satisfying the demands of hunt918
ers for animals to shoot, or of mindlessly exterminating natural predators. In such cases, we are clearly reaping the negative consequences of greed and a correlative failure to think through untoward results of shortsighted policies. There have been cases in which wildlife officials allowed herds of elk to increase abnormally, for example, on the borders of Yellowstone Park. Famously, these animals were virtually domesticated, and when thinning the herd was deemed necessary, “hunters,” more accurately described as slaughterers, were able to walk up to these totally tame animals, place a pistol against their heads, and kill them. In general, management strategies often have unexpected and unfortunate consequences, usually for the animals, as evidenced by cavalierly introducing the mongoose into Hawaii or the domestic cat into Australian wilderness. Our ability to act in this area far exceeds our ability to plan. In those cases where explosions in populations result from our inability to think through the consequences of innovations in management of wildlife, CVJ / VOL 55 / OCTOBER 2014
CVJ / VOL 55 / OCTOBER 2014
residence in my garage, where they are quite destructive. And yet, counterintuitively, this is one of the great charms of living in the country. The only answer to these problems is for society as a whole to take an interest in their solution. Such an interest has transformed prairie dog colonies from shooting galleries for hunters into tourist attractions for urban people. Even as contact with wild animals has diminished, moral concern for these animals has paradoxically increased. There is a great need for us to collectively think through management of the problems we have been discussing, else we will lose some of the benefits of interaction with nature that we are not even aware of.
Bernard E. Rollin, PhD
919
V E T E R I N A RY M E D I CA L E T H I C S
it does not seem morally acceptable that the animals, who are classically victims, should bear the costs of ill-conceived policies. Consider bloated deer populations, where the major problem engendered by the animals may be their incursion into backyards and vegetable gardens. Surely it would be far more morally sensitive to control population expansion by the use of contraception rather than by releasing hordes of bow-hunters, which can result in a great deal of animal suffering. Contraception is of course far from perfect, since the animals consuming the contraceptive drugs may not be the ones whose reproductive lines are desirable to cut off. But at least the animals are spared the pain and fear occasioned by wholesale slaughter euphemistically and inaccurately referred to as “hunts.” Such methods of control allow shooters to virtuously cloak themselves in righteousness, since they are preventing the death of many animals from starvation, which is presumably a much worse death than a well-placed bullet. When such culling is deemed necessary, for example culling of elephants to avoid major environmental damage in South Africa, it is done with precision by professional hunters, rather than hit-and-miss by bloodthirsty yahoos. In the long run, controlling animal populations should be based in far more reflective thinking than has historically been evident in the field of wildlife management, once aptly characterized by a friend of mine in the field as “collar and foller.” Furthermore, morally sound wildlife management should not be based exclusively in financial rewards for wildlife managers, whose salaries have historically been paid by hunters. Fortunately, today, “non-consumptive uses of wildlife,” such as, for example, by hikers, wildlife photographers, and those who take pleasure in unobtrusively observing wild nature, greatly outnumber hunters and trappers. If that is indeed the case, a moral dimension should be factored into the field of wildlife management by non-consumptive users being far more involved in determining policies and voting with their dollars. I myself live on 15 rural acres near a lake, which land provided a sanctuary for all manner of wildlife, ranging from hawks and eagles to coyotes, and burrowing owls and prairie dogs. In fact, watching these animals was a major asset of where we live. Inevitably, the balance was upset by developers who poisoned the prairie dogs in a wholesale way and thereby exterminated the burrowing owls who lived in empty prairie dog burrows. They also drove away the coyotes, creating such a proliferation of rabbits that any time I come home, day or night, I see scores of rabbits cavorting on my property. And yes, there are costs. They eat my garden and, inexplicably devour my watering hoses and, even more strange, delight in chewing the electrical wiring in my automobiles. In many cases, they end up taking up
Question de déontologie du mois — Octobre 2014 Vous êtes un étudiant de troisième année en médecine vétérinaire et, le vendredi soir, vous êtes au restaurant pour souper avec une camarade de classe. Elle reçoit un appel et vous l’entendez organiser une visite à la ferme pour vérifier une gestation et vacciner des vaches le lendemain matin. Vous vous excusez d’avoir écouté la conversation et vous lui demandez si vous pouvez l’accompagner. Le lendemain, vous la rencontrez à sa maison à la campagne d’où elle se rend tous les jours à l’école de médecine vétérinaire. Vous empruntez le chemin pour vous rendre chez un voisin qui a mis les vaches dans un enclos afin qu’elles soient prêtes pour l’examen. Vous aviez présumé que le vétérinaire local serait présent, mais vous réalisez bientôt qu’il n’y a que vous et votre camarade de classe pour faire le travail. Vous terminez le travail après deux heures et vous remarquez que votre camarade de classe accepte une bouteille de vin, mais aucune autre forme de paiement pour les services. Vous êtes heureux d’avoir eu l’occasion d’obtenir cette expérience pratique, mais vous êtes un peu nerveux de réaliser le travail sans la supervision d’un vétérinaire. Vous mentionnez ce fait à votre camarade de classe qui dit qu’elle sait que c’est techniquement interdit, mais qu’elle fait ce travail seulement pour quelques voisins qu’elle connaît bien et que, d’ailleurs, tout le monde s’entraide à la campagne. Vous vous sentez maintenant complice d’un comportement qui, vous le comprenez bien, pourrait être considéré comme une conduite non professionnelle. Comment devriez-vous répondre?
Responses to the case presented are welcome. Please limit your reply to approximately 50 words and forward along with your name and address to: Ethical Choices, c/o Dr. Tim Blackwell, Veterinary Science, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, 6484 Wellington Road 7, Unit 10, Elora, Ontario N0B 1S0; telephone: (519) 846-3413; fax: (519) 846-8178; e-mail: [email protected] Suggested ethical questions of the month are also welcome! All ethical questions or scenarios in the ethics column are based on actual events, which are changed, including names, locations, species, etc., to protect the confidentiality of the parties involved.
Les réponses au cas présenté sont les bienvenues. Veuillez limiter votre réponse à environ 50 mots et nous la faire parvenir par la poste avec vos nom et adresse à l’adresse suivante : Choix déontologiques, a/s du Dr Tim Blackwell, Science vétérinaire, ministère de l’Agriculture, de l’Alimentation et des Affaires rurales de l’Ontario, 6484, chemin Wellington 7, unité 10, Elora (Ontario) N0B 1S0; téléphone : (519) 846-3413; télé copieur : (519) 846-8178; courriel : [email protected] Les propositions de questions déontologiques sont toujours bienvenues! Toutes les questions et situations présentées dans cette chronique s’inspirent d’événements réels dont nous modifions certains éléments, comme les noms, les endroits ou les espèces, pour protéger l’anonymat des personnes en cause.
Use of this article is limited to a single copy for personal study. Anyone interested in obtaining reprints should contact the CVMA office ([email protected]) for additional copies or permission to use this material elsewhere. L’usage du présent article se limite à un seul exemplaire pour étude personnelle. Les personnes intéressées à se procurer des réimpressions devraient communiquer avec le bureau de l’ACMV ([email protected]) pour obtenir des exemplaires additionnels ou la permission d’utiliser cet article ailleurs. CVJ / VOL 55 / OCTOBER 2014
917
D É O N TO LO G I E V É T É R I N A I R E
Ethical question of the month — July 2014 Natural selection maintains balance in most wildlife populations. “Survival of the fittest” is seldom an issue for members of the public concerned about animal welfare. However, there is often strong opposition if the decision is made to cull animals when there is an imbalance caused by the disproportionate increase of one species within an area or ecosystem. Examples of cull programs that have generated heated opposition include the feral rabbits on the campus of the University of Victoria, wild horses in Alberta, moose on the island of Newfoundland, feral dogs in isolated northern communities, and Canada geese on golf courses and around airports. In most of these cases the target species has no natural predators within the area in which it is problematic. The resulting population imbalance causes harm to the overpopulating species as well as to other members of the bionetwork. Can shooting, trapping, or poisoning all or most of an “invasive” species be justified on an ethical basis?
Question de déontologie du mois — Juillet 2014 La sélection naturelle maintient l’équilibre dans la plupart des populations sauvages. La «survivance des plus aptes» est rarement une question envisagée par les membres du public lorsqu’ils pensent au bien-être animal. Cependant, lorsqu’il se produit un déséquilibre causé par la hausse disproportionnée d’une espèce dans une région ou un écosystème, la décision d’éliminer des animaux soulève souvent un tollé. Citons, à titre d’exemples de programmes d’élimination qui ont suscité une forte opposition, les lapins féraux sur le campus de l’Université de Victoria, les chevaux sauvages en Alberta, les orignaux dans l’île de Terre-Neuve, les chiens féraux dans les collectivités isolées du Nord et les bernaches du Canada sur les terrains de golf et à proximité des aéroports. Dans la plupart de ces cas, l’espèce ciblée n’a aucun prédateur naturel dans la région où elle cause des problèmes. Le déséquilibre qui en résulte nuit à l’espèce en surpopulation ainsi qu’aux autres membres du réseau biologique. Peut-on justifier, du point de vue de l’éthique, l’élimination d’une espèce «envahissante» à l’aide de fusils, de pièges ou d’empoisonnement?
Culling invasive species — A comment This topic brings several questions to mind: 1) Who caused the “population imbalance”? (Humans); 2) Would the culling fix this imbalance? (Probably not); 3) Aren’t humans the “invasive” species? (Technically yes); 4) Do these species pose a serious threat to humans? (At most, a nuisance); 5) How can veterinarians, who are supposed to save animals, morally justify these cullings when these species are not ill or dying? (In fact the opposite, they are thriving).
In the words of the late Farley Mowat: “I believe that only Nature can do it and that man, despite all of his brains, just gets in the way.” Michael Belanger, Barrie, Ontario
An ethicist’s commentary on culling invasive species There are unquestionably situations in which proliferation of certain sorts of animals represents a genuinely mortal danger to humans. Chickens may serve as a zoonotic reservoir of bird flu viruses; rattlesnakes have proliferated sufficiently in certain areas so as to represent a danger to homeowners, particularly when they have mutated so as to lose the warning rattle; geese who live and fly near an airport can well become a source of airline crashes when they are sucked into jet engines. In such cases, where the situation is “us or them,” there may be no other alternative than killing them, though one should always thoroughly examine other possible alternatives that do not involve extermination. On the other hand, there are many more cases in which the population’s being out of control is attributable to human action undertaken with no sense of possible deleterious consequences. For example, there are many areas where deer populations have exceeded sustainable limits as a result of ill-advised “wildlife management” policies aimed at satisfying the demands of hunt918
ers for animals to shoot, or of mindlessly exterminating natural predators. In such cases, we are clearly reaping the negative consequences of greed and a correlative failure to think through untoward results of shortsighted policies. There have been cases in which wildlife officials allowed herds of elk to increase abnormally, for example, on the borders of Yellowstone Park. Famously, these animals were virtually domesticated, and when thinning the herd was deemed necessary, “hunters,” more accurately described as slaughterers, were able to walk up to these totally tame animals, place a pistol against their heads, and kill them. In general, management strategies often have unexpected and unfortunate consequences, usually for the animals, as evidenced by cavalierly introducing the mongoose into Hawaii or the domestic cat into Australian wilderness. Our ability to act in this area far exceeds our ability to plan. In those cases where explosions in populations result from our inability to think through the consequences of innovations in management of wildlife, CVJ / VOL 55 / OCTOBER 2014
CVJ / VOL 55 / OCTOBER 2014
residence in my garage, where they are quite destructive. And yet, counterintuitively, this is one of the great charms of living in the country. The only answer to these problems is for society as a whole to take an interest in their solution. Such an interest has transformed prairie dog colonies from shooting galleries for hunters into tourist attractions for urban people. Even as contact with wild animals has diminished, moral concern for these animals has paradoxically increased. There is a great need for us to collectively think through management of the problems we have been discussing, else we will lose some of the benefits of interaction with nature that we are not even aware of.
Bernard E. Rollin, PhD
919
V E T E R I N A RY M E D I CA L E T H I C S
it does not seem morally acceptable that the animals, who are classically victims, should bear the costs of ill-conceived policies. Consider bloated deer populations, where the major problem engendered by the animals may be their incursion into backyards and vegetable gardens. Surely it would be far more morally sensitive to control population expansion by the use of contraception rather than by releasing hordes of bow-hunters, which can result in a great deal of animal suffering. Contraception is of course far from perfect, since the animals consuming the contraceptive drugs may not be the ones whose reproductive lines are desirable to cut off. But at least the animals are spared the pain and fear occasioned by wholesale slaughter euphemistically and inaccurately referred to as “hunts.” Such methods of control allow shooters to virtuously cloak themselves in righteousness, since they are preventing the death of many animals from starvation, which is presumably a much worse death than a well-placed bullet. When such culling is deemed necessary, for example culling of elephants to avoid major environmental damage in South Africa, it is done with precision by professional hunters, rather than hit-and-miss by bloodthirsty yahoos. In the long run, controlling animal populations should be based in far more reflective thinking than has historically been evident in the field of wildlife management, once aptly characterized by a friend of mine in the field as “collar and foller.” Furthermore, morally sound wildlife management should not be based exclusively in financial rewards for wildlife managers, whose salaries have historically been paid by hunters. Fortunately, today, “non-consumptive uses of wildlife,” such as, for example, by hikers, wildlife photographers, and those who take pleasure in unobtrusively observing wild nature, greatly outnumber hunters and trappers. If that is indeed the case, a moral dimension should be factored into the field of wildlife management by non-consumptive users being far more involved in determining policies and voting with their dollars. I myself live on 15 rural acres near a lake, which land provided a sanctuary for all manner of wildlife, ranging from hawks and eagles to coyotes, and burrowing owls and prairie dogs. In fact, watching these animals was a major asset of where we live. Inevitably, the balance was upset by developers who poisoned the prairie dogs in a wholesale way and thereby exterminated the burrowing owls who lived in empty prairie dog burrows. They also drove away the coyotes, creating such a proliferation of rabbits that any time I come home, day or night, I see scores of rabbits cavorting on my property. And yes, there are costs. They eat my garden and, inexplicably devour my watering hoses and, even more strange, delight in chewing the electrical wiring in my automobiles. In many cases, they end up taking up
