Redefining Conservation with Compassion: Can Biodiversity Protection and Animal Welfare Coexist?
Can we protect biodiversity without compromising our responsiblity towards individual animals?
Who decides which animals deserve protection - and which can be exploited, controlled or eliminated?
Biodiversity conservation and animal welfare are often discussed as competing priorities. - But should they be?
Across the world, conservationists are working to protect native species and fragile ecosystems from the impacts of introduced species. In Mauritius, this discussion is particularly relevant when considering macaques, cats, introduced reptiles and other animals whose presence may affect native biodiversity.
There are legitimate scientific concerns. Introduced species can disrupt ecosystems, compete with native wildlife, transmit diseases and contribute to population declines and even extinctions.
Protecting vulnerable and endemic species is essential.
But there is another dimension to this debate that deserves much greater attention.
Does an animal lose its intrinsic value simply because humans introduced its ancestors into an ecosystem?
Does geographical origin determine whether an animal deserves compassion? And does classifying a species as invasive automatically justify its exploitation, suffering or elimination?
These are not merely philosophical questions. They raise important scientific, ethical and practical challenges for modern conservation.
The uncomfortable contradiction
Humans have transported animals across continents, transformed habitats, introduced non-native species and fundamentally altered ecosystems.
Yet, when the consequences of these actions become problematic, it is often the animals themselves that bear the concequences.
We label them pests, invaders or destructive species.
But these animals did not choose their geographical distribution. They did not decide to establish populations in Mauritius or elsewhere. Their presence is frequently the consequence of human activities, historical trade, colonisation and environmental change.
And what about the human species itself?
Human activities are among the principal drivers of global biodiversity loss. We have transformed ecosystems, displaced native species and introduced organisms far beyond their natural ranges.
This is not to equate human beings with introduced animal populations. It is to question the consistency of an ethical framework that recognises human responsibility for ecological disruption but places the burden of correcting it almost entirely on individual animals.
Science is beginning to bridge the divide
Importantly, this is not simply an animal-rights argument. A growing body of scientific literature is examining how biodiversity objectives can be reconciled with the welfare of individual animals.
Several publications offer particularly interesting perspectives:
1. International Consensus Principles for Ethical Wildlife Control (2017)
Published in Conservation Biology, this international expert consensus proposes seven principles for ethical and evidence-based wildlife management.
Among its recommendations:
Address human practices that cause wildlife conflicts wherever possible.
Require evidence that significant harm is actually occurring.
Establish measurable objectives and monitor outcomes.
Minimise animal welfare impacts.
Consider community values alongside scientific evidence.
Avoid basing decisions simply on negative labels such as 'pest' or 'overabundant'.
This is particularly important: wildlife management should be based on the circumstances and evidence, not simply the identity of the species.
2. Wildlife Ethics and Practice: Why We Need to Change the Way We Talk About 'Invasive Species' (2020)
Meera Iona Inglis examines how the language surrounding invasive species can influence public attitudes and legitimise the killing of animals.
The article challenges the oversimplification of complex ecological processes and questions whether the terminology itself can contribute to ethically problematic conservation practices.
An important contribution to the discussion about how we perceive and treat introduced wildlife.
3. Bridging Compassion and Justice in Conservation Ethics (2020)
Published in Biological Conservation, this paper brings together two emerging approaches: compassionate conservation and multispecies justice.
It challenges traditional conservation approaches that routinely dismiss the interests of individual animals when they conflict with human interests or prevailing biodiversity objectives.
It also explores how compassion and justice can inform more inclusive conservation decisions.
4. Ethical Treatment of Invasive and Native Fauna in Australia: Perspectives through the One Welfare Lens (2022)
This publication in Animals is particularly relevant to the discussion we should be having.
The authors bring together perspectives from conservation, wildlife research, invasive animal ecology, animal protection and compassionate conservation.
They explore how decisions about wildlife management affect three interconnected dimensions:
Animal welfare.
Human welfare.
Environmental wellbeing.
The One Welfare approach provides a framework for considering all three rather than allowing one interest to automatically override the others.
5. Taking Natural Harms Seriously in Compassionate Conservation (2024)
Published in Biological Conservation, this paper takes the discussion further.
It examines how compassion, respect and an understanding of animal experiences can inform conservation.
Importantly, it recognises that simply avoiding intervention is not always sufficient. Animals experience suffering through both natural processes and human activities.
The authors call for approaches that better consider the wellbeing of individual animals alongside biodiversity protection.
6. Quantifying and Categorising the Animal Welfare Impacts Caused by Biological Invasions (2026)
A particularly significant recent contribution, published in Nature Communications on 5 May 2026.
Thomas Evans and Michael Mendl introduce the Animal Welfare Impact Classification for Invasion Science (AWICIS).
Their research addresses an important gap: biological invasion research has traditionally concentrated on impacts on native species and ecosystems, while often overlooking the suffering experienced by individual animals.
Their framework provides a way to assess the physical and mental welfare impacts of biological invasions on both native and introduced animals.
It is an important development because it demonstrates that biodiversity impacts and animal welfare impacts are distinct, yet interconnected, dimensions that can and should be assessed together.
But what about the effectiveness of lethal control?
There is another important scientific consideration: even when intervention is justified by ecological objectives, does killing actually achieve those objectives?
In Stop Jumping the Gun: A Call for Evidence-Based Invasive Predator Management (2016), published in Conservation Letters, Tim Doherty and Euan Ritchie examine the ecological and practical limitations of lethal predator control.
They identify several factors that can undermine its effectiveness, including changes in predator populations, disruption of social structures and the arrival of new animals from surrounding areas.
The authors also examine alternative approaches, including habitat management, exclusion fencing and other ecological interventions.
Their central message is that management strategies must be evaluated on evidence of their effectiveness, rather than assuming that removing animals necessarily solves the conservation problem.
What could a more ethical conservation strategy look like?
This is not about ignoring ecological damage or abandoning the protection of threatened native species.
It is about broadening the way we approach conservation.
Could we:
Restore habitats and reduce human-created food sources that encourage wildlife conflicts?
Prioritise preventing further introductions and addressing the human activities responsible?
Explore humane population management, fertility control, exclusion and relocation where scientifically appropriate?
Protect vulnerable native species through targeted habitat protection and other effective interventions?
Require independent assessments of ecological effectiveness and animal welfare before implementing population-control programmes?
Monitor the long-term consequences of interventions, including unintended ecological and welfare impacts?
Above all, could we establish a conservation culture in which the suffering of individual animals is no longer treated as an irrelevant consideration simply because their species is classified as introduced or invasive?
Mauritius: An opportunity to rethink conservation
For Mauritius, this discussion is particularly relevant.
Our island has a complex ecological history. We have extraordinary endemic biodiversity requiring urgent protection, introduced populations with varying ecological impacts, and a long history of human intervention in our natural environment.
The long-tailed macaque, for example, is introduced in Mauritius, yet globally classified as Endangered on the IUCN Red List.
Its presence raises questions about local ecological impacts, global species conservation, animal welfare and human responsibility.
Similarly, the management of introduced cats and non-native reptiles requires scientifically informed, species-specific approaches that consider both the protection of native wildlife and the welfare of the animals being managed.
We must also recognise that the classification of a species, its ecological impact and the ethical treatment of individual animals are three different questions. They should not automatically be conflated.
We should not have to choose between biodiversity conservation and compassion.
The real challenge is to develop conservation strategies that take both seriously.
A discussion worth having
Perhaps it is time to move beyond the question of which species deserve to exist, and towards a more constructive question:
How can we protect biodiversity while minimising suffering and taking responsibility for the ecological consequences of our own actions?
At Progress Science Mauritius, our philosophy is Redefining Science with Compassion.
We advocate for scientific progress through New Approach Methodologies (NAMs), robust animal welfare legislation and an ethical biomedical future.
But compassion should not stop at the laboratory door.
It should also inform how we approach wildlife, biodiversity conservation and our relationship with the natural world.
Protecting ecosystems and respecting individual animals should not be treated as mutually exclusive ambitions.
A truly progressive conservation philosophy must make room for both ecological integrity and compassion.
We'd be particularly interested in hearing the perspectives of conservation scientists, ecologists, animal welfare researchers, environmental organisations and policymakers.
Can we work towards a more integrated conservation philosophy – one that protects biodiversity without losing sight of the individual lives within it?
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