2nd Animal Ethics Essay Prize Announcement

2nd Animal Ethics Essay Prize Announcement

27 Dec 2017

We are pleased to announce that the 2nd Animal Ethics Essay Prize on Animal Suffering in the Wild has been awarded to the essay Life-fates: meaningful categories to estimate animal suffering in the wild, authored by Wladimir J. Alonso and Cynthia Schuck-Paim. The paper was selected through a process of blind refereeing, in competition with other unpublished manuscripts dealing with different aspects of wild animal suffering and the ways to reduce it.

The jury highlighted the contribution made by this paper to the complex question of how to devise sound models to estimate what the lives of animals living in nature are like. Designing those models can be key to properly assessing how suffering and other harms are distributed in different ecosystems and what kinds of interventions to aid animals in nature may have higher impact. The aim of this $1,500 prize is to promote interest and research on under-researched topics such as this.

We want to thank all the people who submitted their essays for consideration, and hope they continue their work. We would like to see more work on this important issue published so more people become aware and concerned about it.