Menu
Sign In Search Podcasts Charts People & Topics Add Podcast API Pricing
Podcast Image

EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

“Wild Animal Initiative: When does research become impact?” by SiobhanBall

16 Nov 2025

Description

Wild animal suffering is vast, neglected, and morally urgent. I’m strongly in favour of building a field that can eventually deliver safe, scalable welfare improvements for free-living animals. I also recognise that this area is technically complex and requires foundational research. But after reading WAI's latest annual report, I simply have to ask: When does any of this work actually reduce wild animal suffering? WAI themselves say that ‘it's reasonable to ask whether this will all be worth it’ on p. 28 of their most recent annual report. What then follows is an illustrative case study regarding rabies vaccination, with figures they describe as ‘back of the envelope’ and ‘intentionally crude.’ After 4-5 years and several millions in funding, I can’t find evidence in this report of an intervention, policy change, or measurable welfare improvement driven by WAI's research. What's more concerning is that the report doesn’t spell out a concrete timeline or milestones for when their research is expected to translate into specific welfare interventions or policy changes. Beyond vague phrases like ‘interventions relatively soon’ and a five-year plan to build presence in ecology, there's no clear indication of when wild animals might benefit. [...] --- First published: November 14th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/kizAAxyNkDtwShEJ2/wild-animal-initiative-when-does-research-become-impact --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Audio
Featured in this Episode

No persons identified in this episode.

Transcription

This episode hasn't been transcribed yet

Help us prioritize this episode for transcription by upvoting it.

0 upvotes
🗳️ Sign in to Upvote

Popular episodes get transcribed faster

Comments

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.