“Like any emerging school of thought, wild-animal welfare makes visible what was previously overlooked, or ignored. For example, you might reasonably imagine that clearing wild-animal habitats for houses, or farms, or auto malls, involves a respectable trade-off: human needs vs. animal inconvenience. A 2017 study of land clearing in Australia addresses what is actually involved. Turns out the animals do not simply pack their bags and make a fresh start somewhere new. “The clear scientific consensus is that most, and in some cases all, of the individuals present at a site will die as a consequence of that vegetation being removed, either immediately or in a period of days to months afterward,” the authors write.
They lay out the suffering in exhaustive detail: Animals are crushed, impaled, or lacerated. Some are buried alive. They endure internal bleeding, broken bones, spinal damage, eye injuries, head injuries. Limbs are lost. “Degloving”—partial skinning, alive—occurs. Those that flee their homes (many are surprisingly reluctant to do so) are often run over on nearby roads, entangled in fences, die of exposure, or are made easy prey for predators. You don’t really want to hear this, but tree-dwelling species may cower in their holes up to the moment they pass through the sawmill or the wood-chipping machine. You don’t really want to hear that koala bears may starve when land is cleared—“an issue that has surprisingly not generated much discussion.” By the authors’ estimate, 50 million mammals, birds, and reptiles ultimately die each year due to land clearing in two Australian states alone.” #deforestation