Don’t Demean “Invasives”: Conservation and Wrongful Species Discrimination

It is common for conservationists to refer to non-native species that have undesirable impacts on humans as “invasive”. We argue that the classification of any species as “invasive” constitutes wrongful discrimination. Moreover, we argue that its being wrong t...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: C.E. Abbate, Bob Fischer
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2019-10-01
Series:Animals
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/9/11/871
Description
Summary:It is common for conservationists to refer to non-native species that have undesirable impacts on humans as “invasive”. We argue that the classification of any species as “invasive” constitutes wrongful discrimination. Moreover, we argue that its being wrong to categorize a species as invasive is perfectly compatible with it being morally permissible to kill animals—assuming that conservationists “kill equally”. It simply is not compatible with the double standard that conservationists tend to employ in their decisions about who lives and who dies.
ISSN:2076-2615