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MARC BEKOFF AND DALE JAMIESON 17 Ethics and the Study of Carnivores Doing Science While Respecting Animals THE HUMAN RELATIONSHIP to nature is a deeply ambiguous one. Human animals are both a part of nature and distinct from it. They are part of nature in the sense that, like other forms of life, they were brought into existence by natural processes, and, like other forms of life, they are dependent on their environment for survival and success. Yet humans are also reflective animals with sophisticated cultural systems. Because of their immense power and their ability to wield it intentionally, humans have duties and responsibilities that other animals do not (Bekoff and Jamieson 1991). One striking feature of humans is that they are curious animals, and this curiosity has produced a wealth of knowledge about humans, nonhuman animals (hereafter “animals”), other forms of life, and the abiotic environment. Along with the acquisition of knowledge about nature come numerous intrusions into nature, even from activities such as photographing wildlife that seem to be harmless (Duffus and Wipond 1992). As Cuthill (1991:1008) has observed, “We have to tamper with nature to understand it.” Though it sometimes appears that an examination of some part of nature is not harmful, often what seemed initially to be a minor intrusion turns out to have serious consequences for what has been affected (Caine 1992). Sometimes human intrusions even make it difficult to gain the knowledge that we seek, or to attain well-meaning goals (as may be the case with wild pandas: Bertram 1993; Schaller 1993). In this chapter we focus primarily on ethical questions that arise in studies of behavior and behavioral ecology in wild carnivores under field conditions (see also Cuthill 1991; Kirkwood 1992). There are many important questions that we will not address, including those involved in the physiological analyses of carnivore behavior under field conditions (e.g., hibernation). Furthermore, we say little about domestic dogs and cats, even though they are carnivores and are used in many research projects, including some in behavioral ecology (for references, see Beck 1973; Daniels and Bekoff 1989a, b, c; Bradshaw 1992; Thorne 1992; Orlans 1993, chap. 13; Clutton-Brock, this volume). A 1988 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture states that 140,471 dogs and 42,271 cats were used in various sorts of experimentation Reprinted from Bekoff, M., and Jamieson, D. 1996. Ethics and the Study of Carnivores: Doing Science While Respecting Animals. In J. L. Gittleman (ed.), Carnivore Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution, Volume 2. Copyright © 1996 Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY. pp. 15–45. Used by permission of the publisher, Cornell University Press. in that year alone (cited in Singer 1990:37), and Kew (1991:160) reports data indicating that about 10,000 dogs and 5,000 cats are killed annually in scientific research in the United Kingdom. Domestic dogs and cats are also used for various nonscientific purposes that involve breeding for human-desired traits, many of which are injurious to the animals themselves (Daniels and Bekoff 1990). A great many problems, both methodological and ethical, are unique to field studies of particular carnivores or other species. Many of the issues we are concerned with, however, are not restricted to the study of wild carnivores, and our essay should also inform discussions that center on other taxa, perhaps even insects (Wigglesworth 1980; Eisemann et al. 1984; Fiorito 1986; Lockwood 1987), and on various human activities that involve using captive animals in zoos and wildlife parks (Jamieson 1985a, 1995; Peterson 1989; Chiszar et al. 1990; Kiley-Worthington 1990; Bostock 1993) and in research laboratories. DIVERGENT VIEWS ON THE ROLE OF ETHICS Although a consideration of ethical questions that centers on how humans use animals in science could be viewed as anti-science, it is rather in the best traditions of science. For it involves applying to science itself the scientific spirit of skepticism, rationality, and a demand for evidence. Indeed, consideration of the ethical issues meriting serious attention in field studies of carnivore behavior may make for better science; to this end, Roger Ewbank (1993), editor-in-chief of the journal Animal Welfare, has recently called for papers that specifically address these problems. There is a strong trend for more, rather than less, concern for the ethical issues that arise from animal use in a wide variety of contexts (Huntingford 1984; Rowan 1984, 1988; Dickinson 1988; Rolston 1988; Hettinger 1989; Goodall 1990; Rachels 1990; Bekoff and Jamieson 1990, 1991; Cuthill 1991; Elwood...

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