Valuing Wildness in Animals: Rats

This was the third of a series of six workshops intended to foster an interdisciplinary investigation of the following question: ‘How is wildness in animals valued?’ As an inherently contested concept, wildness provides a particularly useful basis for considering the biological, topological, spatial, cultural, moral, and economic relationships between human and non-human animals. Each workshop in the series will focus on a different species, each raising a range of issues relevant to our general topic.

Dr Fiona Mathews (Department of Biosciences) and Dr John Skelhorn (Department of Psychology) talked at this third workshop on the issues raised by a consideration of rats: the role of negative human attitudes in the question of ‘value’; global dimensions of animals perceived as ‘pests’; the problem of assigning responsibility (rats’ or humans’?) for rats’ destruction of crops, the spread of disease, and population explosions; and speciesism in attitudes toward animal suffering. The papers were preceded by tea and coffee and followed by discussion.

The ‘Valuing Wildness in Animals' project is funded through the Bridging the Gaps development fund. Details of our earlier seminars on 27/10/11: Elephants and 29/11/11: Migratory Birds are available, including copies of presentations.

Fiona Mathews' slides and John Skelhorn's slides can be downloaded here.

 For more information about this project, please contact the project lead, Karen Edwards