Ecological Zoos and the Limits of the Public Trust Doctrine

ABSTRACT

The Public Trust Doctrine is the key normative premise for American wildlife management. Current interpretations suggest that natural resources, such as game species or all wildlife, are owned by the state and held in trust for the public. I argue that using the doctrine as a normative principle biases decisions in favour of consumptive uses of organisms, contrary to the field’s stated goals to employ an ecumenical normative foundation. I use the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve in Utah as a case study to illustrate how this bias manifests in practice. I also provide a new normative principle for wildlife managers.

KEYWORDS:

• Public trust doctrine
• wildlife management
• tortoises
• values
• conservation Policy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. While Leopold’s (1989) later work in A Sand County Almanac is widely influential, his earlier work is more relevant to the history and contemporary interpretation of wildlife management in the United States. Consequently, I do not engage with literature focusing on his later work. I thank an anonymous reviewer for this point.

2. There are diverse reasons people hunt animals, but those reasons are often rooted in culturally sensitive views of gender and sex (Luke, 2007). I appreciate an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this.

3. This information stems from personal communications.

4. The Bureau of Land Management administers the RCDR jointly with state and local organizations. This is an important technical point, but it does not significantly affect my argument. These agencies view their responsibility to wildlife and the public collectively through the lens of the PTD, which means they often have similar values.

5. While individual organisms or a species may benefit via conservation, it is not an accident that the RCDR is designed for a charismatic species that people enjoy.

6. A critic may suggest that many, if not most, conservation projects are ecological zoos. Thus, the definition is spurious. Many areas, such as parks or refuges, are set aside, either directly or indirectly, for wildlife. However, what separates ecological zoos is the level of control over some subset of the organisms. Tortoises cannot leave. Fish are transported to and often bred for particular watersheds. This is distinct from even some game management areas that were ostensibly set up to benefit game species, but, in principle, wildlife are free to move.

7. There are criticisms of principlism in ethics, particularly in bioethics literature (Huxtable, 2013; Takala, 2001). I think these problems are reasonable. I view my work as responding to a problem that practitioners have identified in wildlife management. Namely, that the PTD is insufficient for their work. Insofar as a new normative principle or premise is desired, I aim to address that concern and how, and to what capacity, that new principle may address concerns they have for the discipline of wildlife management.

8. A value realist might object to this. My argument does not necessarily hinge on this point, however. Rather, there is sufficient ongoing literature on the need for “human dimensions” research that, conceptually, wildlife management is open to this (Forstchen & Smith, 2014; Hare et al., 2017). Therefore, this can be read as a practical suggestion for a realist or others.

9. There are other approaches to conceptualizing human-animal relationships concerning conservation. Some analyses are somewhat close to mine (Hendlin, 2014), but others suggest more substantive changes (Donaldson & Kymlicka, 2011). Since my goal is to respond to a debate within wildlife management, my normative proposal is relatively conservative. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.

10. I am grateful to the RoME 2020 conference organizers and attendees for comments on an earlier draft. I also wish to thank an anonymous reviewer for their time and helpful suggestions.