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Animal culling takes place for various valid reasons. When supported by scientific evidence and executed with compassion, it helps protect both animals and humans from more significant dangers. However, when science is overshadowed by public panic and humane methods are replaced with cruel tactics, the consequences can be disastrous for everyone involved.
10. Crushing Baby Chicks to Death
A single rooster can mate with multiple hens, but about half of the fertilized eggs produced are male. The logical approach would be to dispose of the male chicks, but the chickens bred for meat are different from those used for egg production. Male chicks from egg-laying breeds are too lean for the supermarket meat trade, making them worthless to the poultry industry.
Like any form of waste, they are disposed of quickly, typically within their first few hours of life. They may be suffocated in plastic bags, electrocuted, but more often, they are macerated and ground up alive. Grinding male chicks is even considered the most humane method, as the process is nearly instantaneous. Being rapidly crushed by a high-speed grinder is believed to be less painful than a slow suffocation.
Naturally, animal rights organizations continue to oppose the grinding of billions of baby animals alive, regardless of the speed. The chicken industry has its own objections as well—mainly the high cost. They would prefer to avoid wasting money on such practices.
Researchers are exploring ways to identify whether an embryo is male or female while the egg is still viable for sale. This could spare billions of chicks from the grinder and potentially save billions of dollars.
9. Culling Threatened Species
Not all culling is performed with human benefit in mind. In some cases, African wildlife conservationists kill endangered animals to maintain the overall balance of an ecosystem. Their focus isn't just on preserving one species, but on ensuring the biodiversity of the entire park.
A large predator population leads to increased competition for limited resources. Lions, for instance, will kill other big cat species that are already more vulnerable. Even prey animals may need to be reduced in number. For example, Kruger National Park had to cull many of its hippos after a drought left the population with insufficient food to survive.
However, research indicates that culling should always be considered a last resort. Previous elephant culls left survivors without the older elephants needed to teach the younger ones important behaviors, such as recognizing social hierarchy and responding to threats. It even caused psychological trauma among the remaining elephants, similar to shell shock.
8. Denver Has Had Enough of Goose Droppings
Canadian geese flying overhead is a familiar sight in certain parts of the world, along with the droppings they leave behind. Each goose produces about a pound of feces daily. Beyond being a nuisance and the effort needed for cleanup, their waste pollutes water sources and can spread disease. Eventually, Denver, Colorado’s Parks and Recreation Department had enough of the situation.
So, they took action. During the geese’s early-summer molting season, when they are unable to fly, federal contractors were able to easily corral the birds and load them into crates. The geese were then slaughtered, processed, and sent to food pantries to be distributed to those in need. Though goose meat is tough and requires lengthy cooking, it was once referred to as the 'roast beef of the skies.'
7. Australia Targets the Wrong Sharks
A series of deadly shark attacks in Western Australia led the government to take measures to protect beachgoers by setting up drum lines to cull the great whites believed to be responsible for most of the fatalities. However, the drum lines are indiscriminate, and the program sparked controversy as researchers worried about its impact on regional biodiversity, as other fish could be trapped.
The drum lines captured 172 sharks, with 68 deemed eligible for culling. However, none of these sharks were actually great whites. In fact, 94% were tiger sharks, which have not been linked to any fatal incidents in Western Australia since before 1930. Still, they were killed.
The culling led the Australian Environmental Protection Agency to intervene, expressing concerns about the 'scientific uncertainty' surrounding the decision to kill sharks that had no involvement in the fatalities that initially prompted the cull.
6. Marius the ‘Unwanted’ Giraffe
Marius the giraffe became the unfortunate victim of an international breeding program intended to increase the giraffe population in zoos. The program’s success made Marius’ genetic material redundant for any of the participating zoos. Breeding him with any other giraffe in the program would have led to inbreeding, so Marius was deemed worthless and ultimately condemned to the slaughterhouse.
The decision to cull Marius purely because he was no longer needed for the breeding program sparked widespread outrage. The zoo had raised him, but when he no longer served a purpose, they chose to end his life.
Sterilizing Marius was considered, but the zoo argued that he would still consume resources that could be better allocated to support genetically viable breeders. Other zoos expressed interest in taking Marius, but the Copenhagen zoo insisted that it would only share its giraffes with institutions that followed its strict breeding guidelines, rejecting all offers.
So, with no future for Marius and after turning down relocation offers, the zoo chose to euthanize him. An autopsy and dissection were performed in front of an audience, including children. Following this, parts of Marius were preserved for research, while other remains were fed to the zoo’s carnivorous animals.
In response to the public outcry, an official stated that they could not comprehend the outrage.
5. Widespread Human Casualties
When China’s communist government assumed power in 1949, disease was rampant across the country. The government initiated a vaccination and sanitation drive, which included targeting animal carriers of these diseases. This was known as the Four Pests Campaign, which focused on eradicating mosquitoes, flies, rats, and sparrows.
Millions of kilograms of flies and mosquitoes were eradicated, along with an estimated 1.5 billion rats. Initially, the campaign seemed highly successful, until it became clear that culling 1 billion sparrows caused an ecological catastrophe in rural areas. While sparrows were indeed disease carriers, they also played a crucial role in the ecosystem. The loss of such a large number of them created a void in China’s food chain, leading to severe consequences.
At the same time, China was undergoing the Great Leap Forward, a campaign where people were ordered to abandon farming to focus on steel production. With agriculture neglected, food shortages became rampant. The Four Pests Campaign, combined with the eradication of sparrows, led to a surge in insect populations, such as locusts, which ravaged whatever remaining crops there were. This contributed to the Great Famine, which resulted in millions of deaths.
4. Emus Overpower the Australian Army
After World War I, Australian soldiers returned home to government-backed plots of land for farming wheat and raising sheep. Unfortunately, some of these plots were poorly suited for farming. This, compounded by the onset of the Great Depression, made it challenging for these inexperienced farmers to make ends meet.
Then there were the emus.
The emu population, numbering in the thousands, refused to leave the land once the soldiers-turned-farmers took over. They stayed put and began eating the crops, further aggravating the already dire situation for the farmers. Once protected, the emus were now declared pests to be eradicated. The government was so determined to get rid of them that they offered bounties to hunters for each emu they brought in.
However, emus are tough creatures. Despite the culling efforts, their numbers remained robust. The farmers lacked the resources to kill so many emus, so the Australian government decided to call in the army to take on the challenge, launching the Great Emu War.
The soldiers armed with machine guns pursued the emus, but the birds scattered so widely that the army only managed to kill a few hundred out of the thousands. Despite repeated military campaigns, the emus ultimately triumphed in the war.
Finally, the army gave up and handed the ammunition over to the farmers. Armed and ready, the farmers—who were war veterans—managed to cull nearly 60,000 emus in just six months.
3. The Complexities of Canadian Seal Hunting
The Canadian Seal hunt is an annual event that stirs intense debate, with tens of thousands of seals being killed for meat, fur, and other products, along with, some argue, as a means of controlling the population. However, many countries have imposed bans on the import of seal products from Canada, which has significantly reduced demand. Anti-hunting activists point out that profits from the hunt now account for only a fraction of what the government spends monitoring it. On the other hand, the Canadian government maintains that the hunt has indirect economic benefits and continues to support it.
One group that disputes these supposed economic benefits are the Inuit. The indigenous people of Canada hunt seals as a part of their cultural heritage and for survival. While international bans on seal products exempt the Inuit, the demand for their catch has drastically dropped due to the negative perception of the government-backed hunt.
Some advocates now argue for an expansion of the hunt, claiming it’s necessary to protect the local salmon population, which is preyed upon by seals. However, scientists counter that seals are being used as a scapegoat in this situation. Regardless, the seal hunt remains crucial for the survival of certain Canadian communities. Critics, however, argue that if the Canadian government ceased subsidizing it, the hunt would likely fade into extinction as an unprofitable and unsustainable industry.
2. Mauritius’ Endangered Animal Cull Makes Things Worse
The Mauritius flying fox, an endangered species, has been the target of government culling since 2015. More than half of the population has been culled to alleviate the burden on plantation owners. These flying foxes were responsible for about 10% of the annual loss that mango and lychee growers experienced, prompting the culling effort to reduce these damages.
However, the result has been a decline in annual yields. Ecologists point out that the flying fox is an essential pollinator for over half of the island’s plant life. Moreover, the culling strategy proved ineffective; shooting the bats in plantations was difficult, so the government sent hunters to kill them in their natural mountain habitats. Unfortunately, these bats tend to stay within specific areas, meaning that killing them in the mountains did little to address the actual fruit loss on the plantations. Some conservationists believe that the government is perpetuating the culling to gain political favor rather than resolving the issue. As a result, they filed a lawsuit against the government to end the culling.
1. Sewing Rodent Anuses Shut
Nutria, or coypu, are invasive rodents found on nearly every continent. Originally from South America, they spread globally due to international trade and breeding farms. Eventually, some escaped or were deliberately released into the wild, where they began to breed and expand their population.
A researcher in Korea proposed a rather unusual method for dealing with the rodent problem. He suggested capturing a few nutria and sewing their anuses shut, believing the resulting stress would make them resort to eating their young. He claimed to have successfully used this technique at a zoo dealing with rat infestations, where it had apparently eradicated the rats entirely.
Although the method seemed to show results, animal rights groups strongly opposed it. They argued that causing such pain to provoke cannibalism was inhumane and abusive. Predictably, the researcher’s idea was met with rejection, and the plan was never put into action.
