Human Companions: The Shift From Wildlife to Domestication
Twardek, William & Peiman, Kathryn & Gallagher, Austin & Cooke, Steven. (2017). Fido, Fluffy, and wildlife conservation: The environmental consequences of domesticated animals. Environmental Reviews. 25. 10.1139/er-2016-0111.
William Twardek is a very experienced individual in the field of animal research, with a concentration in ocean life. He has served as a Chinook Salmon Biologist for the Canadian Wildlife federation as well as a undergraduate student researcher studying fish ecology and conservation. Furthermore, Mr. Twardek worked as a data analyst contractor for Fisheries and Oceans Canada. William Twardek has an extremely strong understanding on how ecological environments interact. Kathryn Peiman, a co-worker of Twardek, is also very experienced in the ecological interaction of animals. However, she is predominantly focused in conservation. The next coauthor is Dr. Austin Gallagher who is a biologist with over 60 peer-reviewed papers and has started a non-profit organization called, Beneath the Waves, that has led to positive conservation outcomes. The last co-author of the article is Steven J. Cooke. Mr. Cooke is an associate professor and chair of environmental science at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario. Although all of these individuals have a multitude of experience in animal conservation and the interactions of environments they do not have a broad range of specialities, which is necessary to write a informative paper that benefits from different perspectives. By analyzing the domestication of human companions such as cats and dogs, this piece explores the relationship between man, the power he possesses over other creatures, and the direction that conservation efforts are heading in the future.
The authors of the article, Twardek, Gallagher, Peiman, and Cooke are clear to indicate the many positive and negative aspects of pet ownership. In general the authors cite many more negative aspects of dog and cat ownership but they highlight key positive aspects which the majority are in relation to cats and dogs ability to nurture and develop relationships between humans and nature; leading to an overall increase in empathy and care for environmental conservation. Their first joust at cat and dog ownership summarizes the damaging predation that cats and dogs do to the their surrounding environments. Their main prey, birds, have suffered immensely with over 33 species of birds predated to extinction by cats. Cats and dogs unintentionally can transfer human pathogens to wild species due to cats and dogs close interactions with humans. These pathogens can be extremely harmful as they more than likely are antibiotic resistant as owners will mistreat cats and dogs with low amounts of antibiotics. Additionally with over 200 million stray dogs and 100 million stray cats spread across planet earth these animals can mate with animal outside of their species resulting in sterile offspring leading to the de-diversification of species across the globe. These negative aspects indicated by the authors all relate to how cats and dogs harm the environment. The authors contrilariliy indicate cats and dogs ability to form powerful relationships between humans and nature leading to the increase in empathy towards the environment resulting in an increasing in the support of environmental conservation. This benefit has the potential to outweigh the previous negative impacts of cats and dogs as it can help animal conservation grow to a larger entity that can reach species beyond the ones harmed by the cats and dogs themselves. This is the point clearly supported in the article. The authors suggest a pet tax paid whenever an animal is purchased and the animals purchased must be strays in order to prevent further cat and dog euthanization that occurs each year due to overbreeding. The point they strongly suggest is that although there is a huge negative impact on the environment from cats and dogs directly, their ability to form a connection between humans and the environment is pinnacle in the strive for global environmental conservation; an issue that outweighs the direct impact that cats and dogs have on the environment as shown in this quote; “ The potential role of domestic animals in conservation should not be overlooked despite the many negative impacts their populations pose to wildlife.” (Twardek 8) They clearly indicate ways in which cats and dogs environmental impact can be reduced such as: “ Pet owners may also consider clipping their animal’s nails to reduce their hunting ability” (Twardek. 9). They offer many other suggestions such as pet curfews to prevent predation which occurs at night. Due to the author numerous examples on how to easily reduce cats and dogs direct impact on the environment they suggest that the more important purpose of these domesticated animals is to nurture the bond between humans and nature which will eventually lead to wide scale conservation.
Question 1: Is the confinement of pets to the indoors a violation to animal rights if it means that it will better the relationship between domestic and wild animals?
Question 2: Do you think by limiting pet ownership, animals will become more objectified in the public eye because of the loss of connection between them and humans.