Toward ethical treatment of animals in Hawaii’s natural areas

Author:

Stone, Charles P.

Title:

Toward ethical treatment of animals in Hawaii’s natural areas

Periodical:

Pacific Science

Year:

1995

Volume:

49

Pages:

98-108

Subject:

Alien species control Extinction biology (Hawaii Island) Animals

Summary:

Although 15 percent of the land in Hawaii is legally protected from development, species loss continues at a staggering rate as feral pigs, goats, cattle, and sheep have degraded, fragmented, and eliminated large areas of native species habitat from sea level to the timberline. In addition, while ecosystem changes that are caused by rats and mongooses, introduced insects, mollusks, diseases, and some 86 species of invasive alien plants are less noticeable than those caused by the ungulates, these are perhaps more pervasive. As a result, more native species have been eliminated from Hawaii than anywhere else in the United States. While conservationists in Hawaii are aware of what is native and what is alien, and while children and adults are actively taught that invasive aliens are less valuable than natives, conflict exists regarding the preservation of native species and communities. As a result, this document describes how natural area managers in Hawaii are involved in a serious controversy with animal rights interests over the ethics of controlling mammals that eliminate native plants and animals, by degrading and destroying the biological communities they compose.

Label:

Animals

URL:

http://hdl.handle.net/10125/2277

Date:

1995

Collection:

Periodicals