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When conservation and animal rights collide

10,000 Birds

By way of an example take the Western Gulls that I studied on the Farallon Islands in California. Worse still, there will be situations where the two forces come into direct opposition, where the goals of animal rights clash outright with those of wildlife conservation. This is a very serious business here in New Zealand.

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On the Psychological Continuum

Animal Person

So, while this fact does not need to concern us, if we are thinking about ethical principles, for example based on rational arguments leading to deontological ethics, that changes when we are talking about how to move society towards this ethical ideal. In contrast, abstract-rational entities, like personhood or rights, are not.