Animal rights - what price?

Two articles in a recent edition of Nature attracted my attention. The first reports that some scientists wonder if eliminating the mosquito would have a significant, adverse effect on the environment. Research suggests that in each ecological subsystem in which the mosquito appears to play a critical role, one or more other species would quickly fill the cap if mosquitoes suddenly disappeared. (Janet Fang, “Ecology: A world without mosquitoes,” Nature, July 21, 2010)


Evolutionary biologists know that no species has endured forever. Regrettably – at least from the perspective of this human – mosquitoes have endured a very long time. They cause much human suffering and death; the spread of malaria is perhaps the most virulent and best known. The harm that mosquitoes now do seems to outweigh whatever good they once may have contributed to evolutionary development.

However, I have doubts about initiating a campaign to eradicate mosquitoes. If God looked at creation and said, “This is good,” do humans, themselves creatures, have the moral right to determine that what was once good has now become evil? If humans eradicate mosquitoes, what unintended, unforeseen adverse consequences may result? If humans eradicate mosquitoes, will we then target another species for eradication, perhaps with less sanguine results?

Good stewardship of the environment is an essential human responsibility to promote the well-being and happiness of all life. Good stewardship requires not a vain attempt to preserve the status quo but a consistent, thoroughgoing attempt to do no harm, to minimize or ameliorate the damage inflicted, to provide for all sentient beings, and perhaps even to leave the earth on a more solid ecological footing at our death than it was at our birth.

The second Nature article reports on efforts to enforce a law designed to stop animal rights activists’ terrorism (Emma Marris, “Animal rights 'terror' law challenged,” Nature, July 20, 2010). Committing violent, terrorist acts in defense of animal rights seems like an oxymoron to me. Humans, like all other species, are animals with rights. Violently attacking humans to defend the rights of other animals is logically consistent.

Promotion of animal rights, advocacy of animal rights, and even the defense of animal rights are all goals accomplishable without intentionally endangering other humans. Waging terrorism in support of those goals is morally indefensible.

The weak adopt terrorism as a tactic or strategy generally when no other tactic or strategy seems like to succeed. The battle for animal rights in the United States has admittedly been an uphill fight. Employing terrorist tactics have dramatized the plight of certain species and attracted much media attention. However, the terror tactics and strategy have generally failed to achieve their objectives, often producing a backlash against animal rights. Vigorous and appropriate law enforcement responses to animal rights activists and groups that employ terror tactics seem likely to minimize if not end the problem without needing to impose any restrictions on free speech.

Protecting the environment and other living species is an essential human responsibility. I’m thankful that the parish I serve has launched an environmental stewardship ministry. Thankfully, they aim to pursue that goal through peaceful means. In a nation that seeks to live under the rule of law, moral activists have no justifiable reason for resorting to violence to achieve their agenda, no matter how worthy that agenda. Activists should instead walk in the non-violent footsteps of Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Jesus.