Species justice and harm to animals - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 132

instance, the 'wildlife value formula' used by the Ohio Department
of Natural Resources assesses value in terms of the following criteria:
• Recreation - the extent to which a species is actively sought by users
with wildlife interests
• Aesthetic - these values represent wildlife species' beauty and unique
natural history
• Educational - materials and media displays about the species for
educational programming
• State-list designation - as categorised under endangered, threatened
or species of concern
• Economics - direct or indirect economic benefit related to recreational,
food, medicinal use
• Recruitment - reproductive and survival potential of a species as it
relates to the capability for replacement of its population following
decrease or loss
• Population dynamics - impact of the loss of the individual animal to
its local or sub-population.
Extra weighting is granted depending upon whether the species is
abundant, common or a species of concern, threatened or endangered.
From the point of view of measuring harm, while this sort of evaluation
is inherently anthropocentric it nonetheless taps into matters pertaining
to animal welfare and preservation.
The way in which animals are valued is complicated and depends
upon circumstance and behaviours (of both animals and humans). As
mentioned above, there are often distinctions made between 'good'
and 'bad' invasive/native species, as illustrated by the welcome and
protection afforded to (introduced) trout to the lakes of Tasmania, to
the detriment of their local cousins. How they are defined, and what
is valued, when it comes to animals is highly variable and subject to
ongoing contestation at the level of philosophy as well as at the level
of legislative practice (see Beirne, 2009; Sankoff and White, 2009).
This has important consequences for the way in which harm against
different species of animal is socially constructed.
Fundamentally, it would seem that the 'value' of a species is shaped
by its utility in regards to human needs and services, and its relative
abundance as a species. For example, certain types of fish, and elephants,
may be assessed in terms of their value as a resource. The central issues
are those of scarcity and appropriate regulation of trade. The problem
is construed in terms of illegal (or unreported or unregulated) use of
the species as resource (for example, as a food, as an ornament). In