Why humans kill animals and why we cannot avoid it.

Killing animals has been a ubiquitous human behaviour throughout history, yet it is becoming increasingly controversial and criticised in some parts of contemporary human society. Here we review 10 primary reasons why humans kill animals, discuss the necessity (or not) of these forms of killing, and describe the global ecological context for human killing of animals. Humans historically and currently kill animals either directly or indirectly for the following reasons: (1) wild harvest or food acquisition, (2) human health and safety, (3) agriculture and aquaculture, (4) urbanisation and industrialisation, (5) invasive, overabundant or nuisance wildlife control, (6) threatened species conservation, (7) recreation, sport or entertainment, (8) mercy or compassion, (9) cultural and religious practice, and (10) research, education and testing.

Updating the AIHTS Trapping Standards to Improve Animal Welfare and Capture Efficiency and Selectivity.

In 1999, after pressure from the European Union, an Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards (AIHTS) that would result in the banning of the steel-jawed leghold traps in the European Community, Canada, and Russia was signed. The United States implemented these standards through an Agreed Minute with the European Community. Over the last two decades, scientists have criticized the AIHTS for (1) omitting species that are commonly trapped; (2) threshold levels of trap acceptance that are not representative of state-of-the-art trap technology; (3) excluding popular traps which are commonly used by trappers although they are known to cause prolonged pain and stress to captured animals; (4) inadequate coverage of capture efficiency and species selectivity (i.

Correction: Publication reform to safeguard wildlife from researcher harm.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.

Killing Traps and Snares in North America: The Need for Stricter Checking Time Periods.

In this review, we make the point that current checking times for killing traps and snares are inadequate or nonexistent in most North American jurisdictions. We use Conibear 120 rotating-jaw traps and killing neck snares as examples of trapping devices that may fail to consistently and humanely kill furbearers. Because these killing devices are not powerful enough for the target species, the trigger systems do not properly position the animals in traps, or trappers are inexperienced and improperly set traps or snares, these killing devices become restraining devices, and animals suffer long and painful deaths.

Publication reform to safeguard wildlife from researcher harm.

Despite abundant focus on responsible care of laboratory animals, we argue that inattention to the maltreatment of wildlife constitutes an ethical blind spot in contemporary animal research. We begin by reviewing significant shortcomings in legal and institutional oversight, arguing for the relatively rapid and transformational potential of editorial oversight at journals in preventing harm to vertebrates studied in the field and outside the direct supervision of institutions. Straightforward changes to animal care policies in journals, which our analysis of 206 journals suggests are either absent (34%), weak, incoherent, or neglected by researchers, could provide a practical, effective, and rapidly imposed safeguard against unnecessary suffering.

Steel-Jawed Leghold Traps and Killing Neck Snares: Similar Injuries Command Change to Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards.

According to the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards (AIHTS), which was signed by the European Community, Canada, and Russia in 1997, killing devices used for the capture of canids and other fur-bearing nonhuman animals should render an animal irreversibly unconscious within 300 s. However, killing neck snares are not included in the agreement. In this commentary, a parallel is drawn between injuries caused by steel-jawed leghold traps, which have been banned by the AIHTS signatory countries, and killing neck snares to demonstrate that these snares should also be included in international humane trapping standards (i.

Fencing Large Predator-Free and Competitor-Free Landscapes for the Recovery of Woodland Caribou in Western Alberta: An Ineffective Conservation Option.

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Predator Bounties in Western Canada Cause Animal Suffering and CompromiseWildlife Conservation Efforts.

Although predation bounty programs (rewards offered for capturing or killing an animal) ended more than 40 years ago in Canada, they were reintroduced in Alberta in 2007 by hunting, trapping, and farming organizations, municipalities and counties, and in 2009 in Saskatchewan, by municipal and provincial governments and the Saskatchewan Cattlemen's Association. Bounty hunters use inhumane and non-selective killing methods such as shooting animals in non-vital regions, and killing neck snares and strychnine poisoning, which cause suffering and delayed deaths. They are unselective, and kill many non-target species, some of them at risk.

Relative abundance of American badger (Taxidea taxus) and red fox (Vulpes vulpes) in landscapes with high and low rodenticide poisoning levels.

Over the past decade, extensive poisoning campaigns have been conducted in southern Saskatchewan to control Richardson's ground squirrel Spermophilus richardsonii (Sabine, 1822) populations. Such campaigns might impact on predator abundance by decreasing prey levels, and also through secondary poisoning. Using spotlighting, we investigated the relative abundance of American badgers Taxidea taxus (Schreber, 1777) and red fox Vulpes vulpes (Linnaeus, 1758) in 2 study areas with road access and crops, but with different levels of poisoning.

Trapping and marking terrestrial mammals for research: integrating ethics, performance criteria, techniques, and common sense.

We propose that researchers integrate ethics, performance criteria, techniques, and common sense when developing research trapping programs and in which members of institutional animal care and use committees address these topics when evaluating research protocols. To ask questions about ethics is in the best tradition of science, and researchers must be familiar with codes of ethics and guidelines for research published by professional societies. Researchers should always work to improve research methods and to decrease the effects on research animals, if for no other reason than to minimize the chances that the methods influence the animals' behavior in ways that affect research results.