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Some scientists and ethicists are criticizing traditional conservation strategies, which they say focus on saving valued species while discounting the lives of less charismatic animals. Will these advocates of “compassionate conservation” point the way to new approaches, or are they simply being naïve?
Over the past decade, however, researchers have shed light on a different frame through which we might view this scene: the lives of the animals themselves. In that time, our understanding of animal minds — not just their intelligence, but also their inner lives — has been transformed.1 Consciousness, the nonhuman existence of which was until recently a subject of spirited debate, is now recognized as ubiquitous; traits like empathy, self-awareness, and the ability to conceive of past and future, once attributed to just a few exceptionally cognitive species, are now thought to be widespread. Emotions and subjectivities have supplanted a narrow emphasis on problem-solving aspects of intelligence. Anthropomorphism is no longer a scientific taboo, and to think of other animals as sharing fundamental aspects of our own inner lives isn’t anthropocentric: it’s common sense.
On the outskirts of Melbourne, Australia are habitats unlike any found in that continent’s history: