A number of wild animals are killed every year for the sake of conservation, including safety for agricultural crops and human infrastructure as well. Animals ranging from beavers to wild cats, all fall under this category. Unfortunately, they are killed in the most brutal way possible.
According to Nature, the killings of the wild animals might now become more "humane" in approach, as animal-welfare experts and conservationists are voicing in favor of these animals to get the same consideration that is shown to the pets and even wild animals while killing them. Painful means like carbon dioxide gas, drowning and poisons are used for killing "pest" animals in a totally "inhumane" way.
Recently, a group of animal welfare experts, conservationists and government researchers from around the world have come together to set certain guidelines for killing the wild animals in a more "humane" way. It was published in the journal "Conservation Biology" on February 9. The guidelines are a result of a workshop that was conducted in 2015 in Vancouver, Canada. It points towards the latest findings in animal welfare in order to quantify the pain and sufferings that the wild animals experience when they are killed.
The principles thus stated mean to be sound enough and are supposed to reduce the number of available ways of pest control. This, however, is going to incur costs for the authorities. The usage of "cyanide" like poisons, which induces quicker death to the wild animals, is needed to be used so that the animals don't have to die a painful death.
According to The Conversation, most of the cognitive ethologists and philosophers agree on the fact that the animals don't have any concept of the future. This lack of psychological sophistication means that the painless killing of animals will do no harm to them. Also, the option of not killing some of the animals at all is also an option that is being considered by the researchers.
The researchers around the world are working tirelessly on replacing or refining methods of killing wild animals. Though no conclusions have been reached so far, the call for a feasible solution has been made and hopefully, it will come up quickly enough.
