A new paper on how to do effective advocacy work to reduce wild animal suffering

A new paper on how to do effective advocacy work to reduce wild animal suffering

18 Jan 2022

We have just published a new article that gives some indications of how to do wild animal suffering work effectively. The article will be useful to anyone wanting to make a difference for wild animals. It can be read here:

Strategic considerations for effective wild animal suffering work

The article addresses two main issues: (1) how to gain more knowledge about how to best help animals and (2) how to achieve a shift in attitudes about this topic, especially among certain key agents.

In particular, the article explains the following points:

The difference between foundational questions and high priority questions in wild animal suffering research.

What research topics are especially promising. They include vaccination research, helping animals affected by weather events, helping animals in urban or agricultural environments, contraception, work on ways to assess the welfare of animals in the wild, work on how to have an impact on a large scale, work identifying other ways of helping animals, work outside natural sciences, and raising awareness about the issue.

What audiences we should target. They include scientists, people working in policy and law, animal activists, and the general public.

Practical recommendations for successful wild animal suffering outreach.

Ideas for getting involved in wild animal suffering work. These include the following:

What people can do individually

· Share publications about wild animal suffering

· Support animal organizations working on wild animal suffering

· Translate materials about wild animal suffering to other languages

· Help to organize events.

· Organize reading groups of materials (our Introduction to wild animal suffering YouTube video course can be useful for that).

· Online content creators, writers, journalists, artists, and educators, can create their own materials addressing the issue and reach many others.

· Researchers can do work on some of the lines of research indicated above.

What animal organizations can do

· Mention concern for wild animal suffering in general educational materials.

· In social media, every now and then publish a story about animals being helped in the wild.

· Invite people to speak about wild animal suffering.

· Run training sessions to increase their staff or volunteer groups’ knowledge on animal-related issues, and invite advocates working in wild animal suffering to speak about the work they do.

· If focused on research, work on the lines of research listed above.

· If focused on lobbying work, run campaigns aiming at reducing wild animal suffering.