Deadline: March 1, 2024 (followed by rolling submissions)
Event: June 21-22, 2024
Location: New York University, New York, NY
The NYU Wild Animal Welfare Program is hosting a two-day wild animal welfare summit on June 21-22, 2024. The aim of this event is to connect scholars with an interest in this topic, particularly scholars across a variety of fields and career stages.
The first day of the summit will feature lightning talks and discussion sessions. The second day will feature breakout sessions for workshopping collaborative project ideas. Both days will also include vegan meals and plenty of networking opportunities.
We welcome expressions of interest from scholars in all fields, particularly scholars who work in animal welfare or conservation science. Please note that funding for travel and hotel is available for early-career scholars, i.e., scholars within five years of their terminal degree.
If you have interest in attending this summit, please send the below materials to Sofia Fogel at sofia.fogel@nyu.edu. We guarantee full consideration of all submissions received by March 1, 2024. We will also consider submissions received after that date on a rolling basis.
Please include in your expression of interest:
- A CV or resume.
- A statement of interest with three elements:
- A short summary of your current research, your expected future research, and how your research relates to wild animal welfare. (500 words max.)
- (Optional) If you have ideas for collaborative research projects that you might like to discuss at this summit, please describe them. (250 words max.)
- (Optional) If you might like to give a lightning talk about your current or future research, please suggest a topic or set of topics. (250 words max.)
Please note that if you answer questions (b) and (c), your answers can range from general (e.g., “Researching the effects of wildlife corridors on different kinds of species”) to specific (e.g., “Measuring the effects of a new wildlife corridor in Yellowstone National Park on the movement of elk populations.” Please also note that answering these questions does not commit you to discussing your ideas or presenting your work at the event.
Topics that we see as within scope for this summit include, but are not limited to:
- How can we assess wild animal welfare at individual and population levels?
- How can we make welfare comparisons within and across species?
- What are the most common causes of morbidity and mortality for wild animals, and how do they vary within and across species?
- How does the project of improving wild animal welfare interact with the project of conserving species and ecosystems?
- What are the costs and benefits of different kinds of population control for different individuals, species, and ecosystems?
- How can we support individuals, species, and ecosystems in adapting to human-caused climate change and other such environmental changes?
- How can we support coordination and collaboration between scholars who work in animal welfare and environmental conservation, among other areas?
- How can we educate advocates, policymakers, and the general public about the relationship between human, animal, and environmental protection?
If you are interested in these or related topics, we would love to hear from you! If you have any questions, feel free to contact Sofia Fogel at sofia.fogel@nyu.edu.
Thank you to Animal Charity Evaluators and Open Philanthropy for your generous support of this program and event.
I'm not a scholar, but is it alright if I ask what the best source is to explain wild animal welfare to laypeople? I'm looking for something similar to the Superintelligence FAQ, but selected based on success at explaining wild animal welfare instead of AGI. I know a couple scholars but haven't introduced them yet and want to make sure I do it right. It's plausibly a valuable thing to standardize too.
The only sources I'm aware of are the home page of wildanimalsuffering.org, the 80,000 hours page on the topic, and Dylan Matthew's Vox article, and I have no idea which one has a higher success rate of explaining the concept in a way laypeople are able to take seriously. For example, the 80,000 hours page debunks the naturalistic fallacy quickly and efficiently, which indicates that the authors were serious about writing it well, but otherwise it's kinda sparse (maybe the authors put a lot of effort into making it short so it's easier to read and recommend?) and even tries to redirect people to farmed animal welfare instead.