cutthroat trout are the California golden trout, the rainbow trout, the Paiute cutthroat trout, and the biologists. This paper will focus on these stakeholders when determining whether it is ethical to subject invasive species to pain and reduce invasive species populations.
The first major ethical issue to consider when deciding whether it is ethical to manipulate animal populations is, whether it is ethical to cull invasive species to protect threatened species. It is not ethical to cull invasive species to protect threatened species because all invasive species have lives that matter to them and humans should honor their right to live. Some might argue that according to Utilitarianism, it is acceptable to cull invasive species to protect …show more content…
Culling invasive species will require long-term management and may not work, so even if placing the animals in captivity is costly, it allows the invasive species a chance to live their lives. When factoring in the stakeholders, the biologists and researchers will not suffer from not culling invasive species because they will have jobs managing animals in captivity. Culling invasive species can also lead to greater ecological impacts on invasive species removal. According to Kent B. Livezey (2010), the northern spotted owl are not the only species of birds that are being threatened by invasive species. (livezey, 2010). If biologists continue to use lethal methods of repopulating threatened species, then other animals will also be dealt with in similar ways. “…negative effects to USFWS-threatened species are addressed with lethal control, many individuals of many more species…would be killed” (Livezey, 2010). Then biologists will continue to kill other invasive species, which is not beneficial because many animals will die. This will result in the ecosystem suffering …show more content…
The lives of the barred owl should have equal moral standing to the northern spotted owl and should not be treated unequally because it is not classified as a threatened species. The northern spotted owl also should not be given a higher moral standing than the barred owl because they were native. Biologists also should not cull the barred owl to protect the northern spotted owl because there is a chance the recovery plan will not work. Some people might argue from a utilitarian perspective that the deaths of the barred owl will contribute to a positive impact on the ecosystem by allowing the native species to repopulate the area. I believe that the barred owls have rights that should not be taken away due to the greater good. There is also a chance that the recovery plan will not work, which would make the utilitarian approach no longer valid. The removal experiments are difficult to accomplish and requires continuous maintenance (Diller et al., 2014). The long-term maintenance requires biologists to cull barred owls that migrate to the area and keep track of northern spotted owl population growth. The recovery plan’s success is also hard to predict because if a disease occurs or a natural disaster takes place, it can cause the northern spotted owl population to be wiped out. If the recovery plan for the northern