Can Relational Ethics Guide Us in Wolf Management?

ABSTRACT

This paper reevaluates wolf management through a relational ethics lens, highlighting the inadequacy of traditional wild versus domesticated categorizations. Recognizing the complexity of historical and ongoing human-wolf interactions, it proposes a nuanced, context-sensitive approach to ethical responsibilities toward wolves. By introducing an assessment process based on the examination of mutual impacts in human-wolf relations, this study advocates for a more informed and morally conscious management strategy that acknowledges wolves’ complex existence within human-affected landscapes.

KEYWORDS:

• Relational ethics
• wildlife conflicts
• wolves
• No-contact laissez-faire intuition

Introduction

Few species evoke as much emotion and controversy as the wolf (Canis lupus), the land mammal with the second largest natural range after humans (Wabakken et al., 2018). Wolf conservation and management tend to be divisive and contribute to social conflicts between groups in society (see, e.g. Skogen et al., 2013). Consequently, there is a need to develop a more nuanced understanding of the ethical considerations involved in making decisions about wolves. This paper applies a relational ethics framework to explore the ethical issues inherent in our treatment of wolves.

Conflicts involving large carnivores tend to be complex, involving a variety of intricate entanglements between different animal species, each with different relationships to each other and to humans. Given the complexity of ‘the wolf issue’, relational ethics is a particularly useful perspective as it ties ethical obligations of humans toward non-human animals to both the nature of their relationships and contextual factors. Alternative ethical approaches tend to apply equally to all animals, leaving little room for discussion of potentially conflicting duties to different animals, or conflicting interests between animals of different species. A relational perspective can account for more complex ethical responsibilities, such as humans having a duty not to harm wolves, but also a duty to protect domestic animals from predation. This paper contributes to the literature by providing ‘more complex and nuanced accounts’ (Palmer, 2013, p. 21) of the obligations we might have toward different groups of animals.

While traditional wildlife management paradigms have predominantly focused on ecological and economic factors, relational ethics is well suited to informing wildlife management due to its focus on moral issues related to human-wolf interactions. It recognizes that human obligations to wolves are not static but vary with the level of interaction and the context of human-wolf encounters. Notable examples of relational ethics frameworks and therefore a good basis on which to evaluate relational ethics are Clare Palmer’s concept of the ‘No-contact laissez-faire intuition’ (LFI) (2010), and Donaldson and Kymlicka’s framework on relational animal rights (2011). Together, these theories highlight the importance of considering the relational and contextual dimensions in ethical wildlife management and provide a roadmap for understanding how the moral obligations humans have toward domesticated, wild, and liminal animals vary across contexts.

This paper argues that past and present human-wolf interactions have significantly altered the conceptual categorization of wolves as ‘wild’. Human influences have reshaped the very nature of wolves’ existence, blurring the lines between ‘wild’, ‘domesticated’, and even ‘liminal’ categories used by Palmer and Donaldson and Kymlicka to determine humans’ duties toward animals. Consequently, this calls for a reevaluation of the categorization of our relations with wolves and our associated ethical responsibilities toward them. This paper explores the extent to which relational ethics can guide this reevaluation, and ultimately contributes toward more morally informed and context-sensitive wolf management practices. Building on this discussion, the paper goes on to develop criteria for assessing where particular wolves fall on the spectrum of impacts, in which contexts, and what our obligations toward them might therefore be.

Conceptual Framework and Ethical Implications

Wolves as Symbols of Wilderness

‘Wildness’ is a crucial aspect of our relationship with wolves that is currently understudied in ethics. While domestic animals have already been treated in more detail in the literature, MacClellan (2013) and Faria (2015) lament that moral issues concerning wild animals have received insufficient attention and discussion. Do wolves live independently of humans, making them fully wild animals? Or do they perhaps – in some situations – live close enough to and in a certain relation with humans that we can categorize them as a liminal animal, that is, an animal that is neither wild nor domestic, but rather in between, in the so-called human-animal contact zone?

The dichotomy of wild versus tame or domesticated and the link to a paternalistic perspective, which requires the protection of domesticated animals, provides a helpful vantage point from which to look at human-wolf interactions. These categories affect our classification, evaluation, and relations in the multi-species entanglements linked to wolf-related conflicts. While the dogs that humans share their lives with stem from domesticated wolves, wolves are generally regarded as a prime example and symbol of wilderness (see, e.g. Slagle et al., 2019). The perceived wildness and association with wilderness bring them in opposition to domesticated animals, such as livestock and dogs, which they might harm or prey upon. It is generally accepted that domesticated dogs as well as other pets and livestock need to be protected from the ‘wild’ wolves. The wolves’ apparent wildness is considered both desirable and threatening, and makes them the subject of conservation as well as eradication efforts.

The perception of wilderness, wolves’ wildness, and whether an area can be considered wilderness is one determinant of the acceptance of wolves in the area. For Palmer, ‘fully wild’ animals are ‘wild in both the locational and constitutive senses’ (Palmer, 2010, p. 65). Locational wildness is about place and refers to a wild-developed or wild-urban spectrum, according to which the wildness is concentrated in ‘environments on which humans have had relatively little effect’ (Palmer, 2010, p. 64). For Palmer (2010), constitutive wildness is the opposite of domestication, an important criterion of which is intentionally controlled, selective breeding. For Donaldson and Kymlicka (2011, p. 216), truly wild animals ‘avoid and/or are unable to adapt to human settlement’ and maintain ‘a separate and independent existence (insofar as they are able to) in their own shrinking habitats or territories’ (2011, p. 156).

Negative Duties Towards Wild Animals

If we consider wolves to be wild animals, do we have any duties toward them? In her ‘No-contact LFI’ approach, Palmer advocates taking into account the context of the animals and the human involvement in creating those contexts, as well as the kind and distribution of human benefits gained from animals, in order to make decisions about our duties toward them (Palmer, 2011, p. 13). According to her reasoning, humans have prima facie negative duties not to harm any sentient animal irrespective of its closeness or relation to humans. This means that humans may harm neither domesticated nor wild animals, including wolves (Palmer, 2010). In the case of fully wild animals or locationally wild animals (living in wilderness areas), humans have no duties but permission to assist them if their situation ‘reflects no injustice, and no moral agents were involved in bringing it about’ (Palmer, 2010, p. 89; 2015).

However, Palmer notes exceptions to those negative duties toward wild animals, where harming or killing them would not be morally wrong. These might include some trivial reasons, but also substantial ones, such as ‘serious conflicts of interests between humans and wild animals’ or ‘very significant human benefits to be gained’ (Palmer, 2013, p. 4). While she provides no further elaboration on those ‘significant benefits’, most wolf opponents would argue that the presence of wolves and the (potential) damage and danger through them constitute a serious conflict of interest, and eliminating them a significant benefit. Eliminating wolves would contribute to more safety for livestock, other domestic animals, and arguably for humans, and would reduce the level of safeguarding and management measures necessary to keep those animals safe. Would these practical benefits be enough to disregard all duties toward wolves and perhaps in the same manner toward other wild animals impacted by humans?

In contrast to Palmer, Donaldson and Kymlicka advocate a sovereignty theory for wild animals through which wild animals would receive sovereign rights over their territory similar to the sovereignty of human nations, ‘to lead autonomous, self-directed lives’ (2011, p. 205). While such an approach would limit human encroachment on wild animal territory and oblige us to limit our inadvertent harm to wild animals, it would also limit our obligations of positive assistance. What is more, it would also establish ‘terms for wild animals entering sovereign human societies’ and ‘protect us from violations in return’ (Donaldson & Kymlicka, 2011, p. 167). However, the argument for more limited positive obligations depends on a more limited human impact on wolves and is therefore not (yet) applicable to the current situation of continued interference of humans on what would be the sovereign territories of wild animals.

Donaldson and Kymlicka concede to human communities a prima facie right to regulate in-migration by using barriers and disincentives, especially in the case of highly mobile opportunists, such as wolves might be, provided that their basic inviolable rights are respected. If we are to protect domestic animals and human spaces from wolves, the means we use should therefore not harm them, if possible, which is why fences and similar means would be morally required before considering other more detrimental options. Thus, both Palmer’s and Donaldson and Kymlicka’s approaches argue for generally negative duties toward wild animals – that is, they ought not to be harmed and our impact on their lives ought to be limited.

Past Harms and Compensatory Duties

However, the principle of no harm toward wolves has been far from accepted in the past, and even today wolves are still not free from human impact and harm. Palmer contends that humans might take on some positive duties toward wild animals if they have inflicted prior harm: ‘where humans have previously violated animals’ rights, or otherwise seriously harmed them, leaving animals worse off in ways that significantly affect their well-being, humans owe these particular animals, not animals in general, something like compensatory justice’ (Palmer, 2011, p. 7, emphasis in original). Examples of this harm are the destruction of animals’ habitat or the denial of access to vital resources. Those wild animals negatively affected by human actions are in the human-animal ‘contact zone’ (Palmer, 2010, p. 5). Since humans have already disregarded their negative duties toward wolves, they thus have additional duties to redress the past harms.

Comparing Wolves with Displaced Coyotes

To better understand the wolves’ situation, their relations to humans, and the function of past harm, let us also consider Palmer’s hypothetical case study on coyotes displaced by a large residential housing development, which is comparable to wolves and some of the situations they face. In the example of the displaced coyotes, the housing development seriously harmed the coyotes because they lost their hunting and denning areas but cannot move into adjacent territories occupied by other coyote packs. While they continue to suffer from these setbacks, they are further exposed to new, additional hazards, such as road danger and the new residents’ attempts to get rid of them (Palmer, 2010). Donaldson and Kymlicka (2011) recognize the parallels between the injustices suffered by wild animals and by certain human groups whose self-government and sovereign control of their territory have been denied, such as Indigenous peoples, and base their approach on comparisons with such human groups.

In Palmer’s example, she views the coyotes as constitutively and locationally wild, since they were not selectively bred and not directly confined (Palmer, 2011). However, the human land development that displaces the coyotes makes them extremely vulnerable and unable to be self-sufficient. She concludes that in this situation, we should help them ‘in overcoming the obstacles to living well that their vulnerability has created’ (Palmer, 2011, p. 12). In addition to the planners, developers, and contractors as persons responsible for displacing the coyotes, the new residents are also beneficiaries. They have prima facie negative duties to not harm the coyotes, unless there are extremely serious conflicts far beyond just being a ‘nuisance’. Palmer elaborates that the residents living in the newly built housing have additional special obligations to the displaced coyotes, ‘because they are benefiting from the coyotes’ past harm, ongoing vulnerability, and constrained self-sufficiency’ (Palmer, 2010, p. 105). The new residents should thus tolerate them nearby and ‘partially accommodate the coyotes’ interests by habitat restoration (…), messier land use, and generally being willing to tolerate coexistence, even though this will result in some inconvenience to them’ (Palmer, 2011, p. 12). These demands are likely to result in irritation about being asked to accommodate the interests of animals that they consider to be a pest or threat, as well as inconveniences to the new residents, including the need for increased monitoring of domesticated animals and for learning how to behave in the event of a coyote encounter.

However, who determines whether the coyotes are a nuisance and not beneficial to the world at large, or even ‘just’ a nuisance and not a threat? What role can fear of coyote attacks and concerns for one’s own or domesticated animals’ safety play? Is this a serious enough conflict? In wolf-related conflicts, similar questions are broached. Wolf opponents who would like to reduce the number of wolves or eliminate them altogether often argue that their safety and lifestyle are seriously compromised, so much so that they should be allowed to kill wolves.

In contrast to Palmer, Donaldson and Kymlicka (2011, pp. 218–219) view ‘urban coyotes’ (as opposed to ‘wild coyotes’) as liminal opportunists, who are ‘highly adaptive and mobile animals attracted to the opportunities of city life’. While Palmer only concedes positive moral obligations toward this group of coyotes because they have previously been harmed by humans, they would be granted denizenship by Donaldson and Kymlicka, as they do not have the option to move to another ‘wild’ place. As a result, their interests would therefore be considered to a certain degree. An advantage of this approach is the attention to and room for constantly changing ways of life and relations that allow a more flexible consideration of how animals should be categorized and what our moral obligations toward them are.

Wolves in the Contact Zone

Are the coyotes similar to wolves, which also sometimes come close to human settlements? Should we take the proximity of wolves to humans and their infrastructure as a sign that wolves are liminal animals in the contact zone and not fully wild anymore? Donaldson and Kymlicka (2011) point to the lack of ethics research on those animals that are neither wild nor domestic – liminal animals – and Palmer is intent on breaking up the wild-domestic dichotomy with her relational ethics approach, enabling a stronger focus on the wide range of human relations with animals, ‘where place, breeding, history, causal relation, encounter, and context all play some part’ (Palmer, 2010, p. 166). Palmer argues that there are additional positive duties to assist and care for domesticated animals as well as those animals in the human-animal ‘contact zone’, which are neither fully wild nor domesticated (Palmer, 2010, p. 66). This might include wolves. In her justification, Palmer refers to Pogge’s (1997/2007) account of social justice, in which obligations arise from the unjust entanglements of the wealthy with the poor, such as common institutions, being excluded from the use of natural resources, and a violent history. Through these injustices, the wealthy violate their negative duties not to harm, which generates positive duties to compensate those who have been harmed. In the case of animals, such injustice could result from human-animal entanglements, histories, and shared institutional frameworks through which animals are harmed or which established a certain vulnerability in animals beyond direct harms (Palmer, 2010, 2011). Thus, the relations of vulnerability and dependence that humans establish with certain animals change what is owed to those animals (Palmer, 2011, p. 1).

Who Benefits Matters

Palmer argues that in the case of liminal animals in the contact zone, our moral obligations depend in part on who benefits from the interactions. According to her, the categories of relations that constitute the contact zone encompass ‘mutualism, commensalism, contramensalism, and other kinds of potentially relevant human contacts including captivity, relocation, and displacement’ (Palmer, 2010, p. 91). Do wolves constitute commensals, that is, do they benefit from humans while being neutral to them? Or do they have contramensal interactions with humans, that is, do they benefit from the interaction to the detriment of humans?

For Palmer, special obligations generally apply to neither human contramensals (Palmer, 2010, p. 6) nor to opportunistic liminal animals in cities, as in those cases the animals have initiated the contact with humans and profited from it (Palmer, 2003, p. 72). Donaldson and Kymlicka disagree with this assessment and argue that Palmer moves too quickly from the species to the individual level. While opportunistic species are adaptable, individuals of those species might not have the choice anymore between living in the ‘wild’ or close to humans. Although they are not dependent on the relationship with specific humans, they ‘tend to be dependent on humans in a non-specific sense’ (Donaldson & Kymlicka, 2011, p. 220). Which individual animal is contramensal to humans also depends on the individual humans involved, as it does in interpersonal human relationships.

Denizenship for Liminal Animals

Palmer’s approach leaves considerable room for interpretation on which animals exactly are in the contact zone and what moral duties we owe them, but does not concede positive moral duties toward most animals impacted indirectly by anthropogenic activities. By contrast, Donaldson and Kymlicka bestow the hybrid status of denizenship on liminal animals, as opposed to sovereignty for wild animals and co-citizenship for domesticated animals. In addition to respecting liminal animals’ basic rights, denizenship includes various positive obligations on the part of humans, such as reasonable accommodation of their interests in developing human-built environments and assistance that does not undermine their basic liberty and autonomy. Like Palmer, Donaldson and Kymlicka (2011, p. 210) want to dismantle the wild-domestic dichotomy and shine the spotlight on the countless animals that are neither ‘wilderness animals’ nor domesticated, but rather ‘in-between’.

One of the multiple routes through which liminal animals adapt to or start living together with humans is through human encroachment on or encircling of animal habitat, which leaves them no choice but to live close(r) to humans. However, Donaldson and Kymlicka (2011, p. 217) still consider animals in the urban or suburban contact zone to be wild if they ‘do not seek to live in areas of human settlement for opportunistic reasons’ but rather have been forced into contact by chance or by the expansion of human territory. They include suburban animals, such as coyotes and deer, which are comparable to wolves in their perceived degree of wildness, in the category of liminal animals. Interestingly, Palmer generally considers these same animals as wild in her examples (see Palmer, 2010, 2013). This supports the argument that categorization should not occur on a species level, but rather on a smaller scale, such as groups or individual animals.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Categories in Relational Ethics

How Wild are Wolves Really?

Which of these different categorizations of wolves should we take as the basis for evaluating our obligations toward them? Let us now consider in more detail how these approaches apply to wolves and how wild or liminal they might be. Whether wolves avoid humans and human-related constructions and how ‘wild’ they can be considered – their locational wildness in Palmer’s terms – depends on the specific pack of wolves, their habitat, what they are used to, and how closely something, such as non-human animals or infrastructure, is associated with humans. Do they just avoid humans or additionally also anything associated with humans, such as roads and settlements? Which degree of avoidance and which degree of wildness places them in the ‘wild’ category as opposed to the human-animal ‘contact zone’? A large body of literature investigates which anthropogenic features wolves avoid and under which circumstances. Several studies found that wolves generally tend to avoid human infrastructure (see, e.g. Carricondo-Sanchez et al., 2020 for Scandinavia, Kaartinen et al., 2005 for Finland, and Bojarska et al., 2020 for Poland). It can nevertheless be argued that ‘because they are highly intelligent and flexible animals, they succeed surprisingly well in living in our humanized environments and in remaining unnoticed by most humans’ (Drenthen, 2021, p. 432). Following a similar line of argument, the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection views wolves as hemerophiles, which means they can adapt to and might potentially benefit from living within the cultural landscapes created by humans (Kluth & Reinhardt, 2011, p. 5). Likewise, in Austria, official guidelines that help determine whether individual wolves have become problematic base their assessment partly on the proximity of wolves to humans and anthropogenic constructions. The Austrian center for large carnivores (Österreichzentrum Bär, Wolf, Luchs, 2021) considers a certain curiosity and closeness to humans and human infrastructure as normal and without concern, such as wolves running close to villages or individual houses/farms and not immediately fleeing but instead stopping and observing humans and vehicles. Wolves only become ‘critical’ if they repeatedly approach people without behaving aggressively, if they repeatedly approach dogs in human company at leash distance without behaving aggressively, or repeatedly kill or injure properly protected farm animals.

This is in stark contrast to the views of many wolf opponents or locals living in wolf areas, which also matter greatly in such a protracted and complex conflict, as it affects people’s relation to the wolves. Often, once wolves get somewhat close to human settlements, which are not easily avoided due to their sheer number and distribution in the landscape, wolf opponents see them as intruders that need to be kept at bay, either by deterrence measures or by killing them. The wolves’ closeness to human infrastructure, such as walking on roads, approaching slightly remote houses, or showing up in towns, is usually seen as a sign that the wolves are not behaving the way they are supposed to, that is, they are not fully wild anymore. This is a thorn in the side of many wolf opponents, who argue that wolves that are afraid of humans and keep their distance to anything human-related would not be such a disturbance. Regarding the legitimacy of wolves’ presence near humans, Martin Drenthen (2021, p. 433) argues that ‘[e]ven the most outspoken opponents of wolves would be fine accepting that wolves should have a place “in the wilderness”’. Thus, while a certain degree of wildness is inherent in all images of wolves, there is no consistent view on whether ‘normal’ wolves avoid humans and their infrastructure and therefore how wild they generally are.

Humans have Harmed Wolves Previously

The situation of wolves in many European countries is not so different from that of the coyotes in Palmer’s example. Wolves have been extinct or nearly extinct due to persistent human trapping, hunting, and poisoning, encouraged for some time through wolf taxes, but individuals from other populations have started to return and form breeding packs in former wolf areas after the species was protected (see, e.g. Trouwborst, 2010). Nevertheless, they are still killed, both legally and illegally (see, e.g. Skogen & Krange, 2020) and their interests are generally not considered. Other harms and setbacks that might be relevant to human obligations toward wolves include the use of the forests for timber, the development of infrastructure and settlements, the appropriation of land for agricultural purposes, all resulting in the reduction of (previous) wolf habitat, as well as hunting quotas for game animals that leave no place for wolves’ nutritional needs. In addition to territory that has been heavily impacted by human activities, humans and human construction projects such as roads pose new hazards for wolves, such as accidents with cars, as evidenced by the number of collisions with vehicles despite the wolves’ general low population density (see, e.g. Colino-Rabanal et al., 2011). One of the examples Palmer gives of ‘external dependence’, which for her particularly applies to most domesticated animals but also to some non-domesticated ones, is ‘being denied roaming territory’ (Palmer, 2011, p. 10). It can be argued that the general encroachment of humans and their settlements and infrastructure already constitutes a severe restriction of wolf territory. In some countries such as Norway, the wolves’ territory is further restricted to a designated ‘wolf zone’ where they are afforded certain legal protections from being killed and harmed, although they are not prevented from moving to other regions. Once they leave the zone, they are in a much greater danger of being killed.

As Palmer argues in the case of the coyotes, the past harms should be remedied by habitat restoration or even tolerance for coexistence. The ones responsible for the harms are the political and administrative officials and, indirectly, those who lobbied to perpetrate those harms (such as hunting and farming associations). In addition to the beneficiaries, they all have compensatory duties, such as habitat restoration and measures that facilitate coexistence. However, among wolf opponents, there seems to be little to no tolerance for coexistence, which suggests that at least this part of Palmer’s approach is not intuitive for an important part of the population, which hampers its practical implementation. Donaldson and Kymlicka (2011, p. 244) recognize that humans tend to exaggerate the threats and risks imposed on us by wild animals while completely disregarding the risks we impose on them, and they consider this unfair, especially if turned into a ‘zero-tolerance policy’. Although it might be argued that land use leaves enough ‘messy’ room for wolves in countries with relatively low human population densities such as Norway, in more densely populated regions, the maintenance of what is viewed as cultural landscapes is often considered paramount and therefore leaves no room for wolves (see, e.g. Plumwood, 2006).

If we argue that wolves are fully wild animals, which would parallel Palmer’s view of coyotes displaced by land development, then, according to Palmer, we owe them assistance for past setbacks caused by humans, despite the inconvenience and irritation this is likely to cause. More research is needed to determine whether the harm from human activities outweighs the benefits, but for now – especially given the extensive hunting and past extinctions – we can assume that wolves have been substantially more harmed than they have benefitted from humans. The consequences of human activities therefore constitute past harms that need to be redressed. However, these relational ethics approaches clash considerably with the views of wolf opponents. This makes it difficult to include local communities into the discussions and decision-making, which is, however, crucial for the acceptance and therefore the implementation of wolf management plans and policies (Redpath et al., 2017).

Wolves as Liminal Animals?

In addition to the specific harms that humans have inflicted on them, wolves are affected by the widespread presence of humans in nearly every corner of the world and their comprehensive environmental impact. As a result, it could be argued that wolves, or indeed most animals considered to be wild, are no longer entirely wild, but have already been affected by various anthropogenic processes by which humans affect their environment. This shapes our duties toward them. Kotrschal (2013, pp. 109–110) argues that the existence of any ‘free-living wolf’ is indirectly dependent on human-determined conditions, including game density and climate. Some wolves even feed on human waste, frequenting garbage dumps or human settlements. This would support the argument for the liminality of wolves rather than their complete wildness.

Furthermore, wolf habitat is often encroached upon by humans, and even ‘safe zones’ such as national parks or areas specifically established to provide a certain protection to species considered threatened (such as the ‘wolf zone’ in Norway) are not entirely safe. In several cases, the borders of a safe zone have become like the front lines in a war, where hunters and trappers wait for wolves to step out of the zone or even actively lure them out. It can be argued that wolves often have little choice but to live close to human settlements. Together with human expansion into wolf territories, the territorial needs of wolves and the dynamics between wolf packs, which leave little room for offspring, force wolves and humans closer and closer together.

In parallel with the harms inflicted on wild animals, Donaldson and Kymlicka (2011, p. 211) identify many abuses, injustices, and ‘a persistent failure to recognize our distinctive relational obligations’ toward liminal animals. Because of their invisibility in urban settings or settlements, we tend to assume that these animals often viewed as ‘wild animals’ belong out in the wilderness and should not live among humans. As a result, their presence is delegitimized and they are stigmatized as aliens or invaders that we feel entitled to eliminate ‘in the animal equivalent of ethnic cleansing’: ‘the very idea of liminal animals – of wild animals living amongst us – is seen by many people as illegitimate, and as an affront to our conception of human space’ (Donaldson & Kymlicka, 2011, p. 211). However, as suburban areas now have higher biodiversity than areas of intensive agricultural use, and as much ‘wildlife’ has migrated into urban and suburban areas or close to human settlements, we should reconsider what ‘natural habitat’ is for some species and how we should categorize their relations to humans. For example, Ricketts and Imhoff (2003) analyzed 76 terrestrial ecoregions in North America and concluded that urban land cover is positively correlated with both species richness and endemism, making conservation efforts in densely populated areas crucial. This is one of the reasons why we can no longer think in terms of separate spaces for humans and animals. The exclusive relegation of wolves to wilderness areas, often thought to be in expansive northern regions such as Alaska or Siberia, is therefore not only unrealistic, but generally detrimental to biodiversity, which needs large, connected habitats even in areas close to people. This is particularly relevant in view of the current biodiversity crisis, which has been described as the sixth mass extinction caused by human activity (WWF, n.d.).

This suggests that wolves should be seen as liminal rather than wild animals. We then need to assess who benefits overall from human-wolf interactions. In ecology, contramensal interactions, as human-wolf relationships are often perceived, usually involve parasitism, predation or herbivory (Hodge & Arthur, 1996). None of these seem to fit clearly with wolves’ relationships with humans, except perhaps wolves’ predation on humans in more extreme cases. However, these categories do not fit other opportunists either, many of which are regarded as liminal pests or nuisances, such as rats or pigeons, or as threats, such as coyotes (Donaldson & Kymlicka, 2011). If we extend the harm from predation to include domesticated species and species of benefit to humans, which include livestock, game animals, and dogs, then wolves may indeed be considered contramensal. Another potentially relevant interaction not included in Palmer’s analysis is competition, where the interaction is detrimental to both parties (Hodge & Arthur, 1996). This applies well to wolf-human relationships as there is competition for resources such as food (livestock and game) and habitat.

Nevertheless, some people may consider the presence of wolves to be beneficial, for example, for ecological reasons (improving the health of game populations, restoring ecosystem balance, reducing damage to forests by ungulates), as a tourist attraction, or to reduce losses to the timber industry from damage caused by ungulates. For these people, the relationship with wolves could be classified as mutualistic, if we assume that wolves also benefit from humans (roads facilitate travel, humans increase the density of prey populations, human waste serves as a food source) and that this outweighs the damage caused by the interactions. Or we could see humans as the beneficiaries of a contramensal relationship with wolves, if we argue that the harm caused to wolves by human actions outweighs the benefits they derive.

Palmer argues that some species are usually considered contramensals, such as non-domesticated rats, although there are exceptions to this categorization, for example in certain regions or cultures that revere and care for them (Palmer, 2010, p. 67). Perhaps wolves occupy a similar position. Individual animals or distinct populations of one species might be categorized differently depending on the human counterpart who may or may not benefit or care about the interaction, as well as the specific place or specific interaction. This is confirmed by the wide variety of views on the usefulness or harmfulness of wolves in the scientific literature and media. The categorization is therefore very specific to the individuals involved and also has a significant cultural aspect, making a general, transcultural categorization difficult and unhelpful. Thus, wolves move between categories depending on the context, resulting in very different ethical implications.

Moving Beyond Categories to Impacts

In parallel with the problematic classification of relationships as commensal, contramensal or mutualist, Donaldson and Kymlicka (2011) argue that different members of the same or related animal species might fall in different categories of wild, domesticated or liminal. This argument applies to a wide range of species, including those relevant to wolf-related conflicts. Wolves in their present form are not domesticated, which means they are constitutionally wild in Palmer’s sense. However, in terms of their locational wildness, they can either be as wild as possible in our current world, living in vast national parks or protected areas, or they can live close to and around human settlements where they regularly interact with humans and domesticated animals. In the latter case, they could be considered as liminal animals. In general, I would argue that most wolves in most regions can be considered liminal rather than fully wild, as they are still constitutionally wild but no longer locationally wild.

Furthermore, I propose that different people would place wolves very differently on the wild-liminal-domesticated spectrum, and evaluate the benefits for wolves and humans very differently. This is strongly dependent on context and other individual aspects (see, e.g. Røskaft et al., 2007). For some, especially ecologists, perhaps wildlife watchers and generally wolf proponents, wolves are highly social, intelligent, sentient animals that benefit the environment. For many hunters, farmers and opponents of wolves, however, they are a nuisance and a danger to people and the animals with which they have some relationship or from which they benefit, such as pets, livestock, and game animals. Interestingly, wolf opponents often have different conceptions of the ‘wildness’ of the wolves in question than wolf supporters. For wolf opponents, their occasional proximity to human infrastructure and people means a loss of their wildness, making them difficult to predict and even more dangerous. For wolf supporters, wolves are fully wild but smart enough to make use of human infrastructure.

As a result, this paper argues that the traditional classifications in wildlife management and relational ethics often fail to fully capture the complex and sometimes contradictory dynamics of human-wolf interactions. Adopting a methodology that respects the fluidity and complexity of these relations, it proposes a paradigm shift that moves beyond static categories from which broad moral obligations are derived. Instead, it offers a flexible framework that views human-wolf relationships as a spectrum of impacts and examines how wolves and humans have influenced each other. This results in a more nuanced and context-sensitive understanding of ethical responsibilities and an approach to wildlife management that is both ethically and ecologically sound. Highlighting the work of Dubois et al. (2017), which champions management strategies that are tailored to the specific conditions and challenges, this paper supports a more context-sensitive and individual-centered approach. Such an approach would assess, wherever possible, the relationship of individual animals or relevant groups, such as wolf packs, to individual humans and to humans in general.¹ In specific cases and situations, the following criteria or impacts, which are based on an analysis of the most pertinent aspects in relational ethics, should be considered.

Beyond Wildness, Liminality, and Domestication: Examining Impacts

The first step is to identify the various influences of humans on wolves and of wolves on humans, moving beyond the categories of wild, liminal and domesticated toward a spectrum of impacts related to wolves’ interactions with and proximity to humans. This examination of impacts forms the basis upon which harms and benefits can be assessed in a second step, leading to ethical implications for wildlife management and policy-making. This first step should include an analysis of the following aspects that shed light on the extent to which wolves are affected by humans:

• Impacts on wolf habitat: This includes anthropogenic infrastructure that can affect wolves’ migratory patterns, for example by disrupting routes through impassable infrastructure such as highways and fences, or by creating routes that wolves can use with some risk, such as roads and railways. It also includes indirect influences, such as human settlements and increased human presence, which can disturb wolves but also provide opportunities in the form of resources. Furthermore, anthropogenic climate change indirectly affects both biotic (vegetation, animal species) and abiotic (temperature, geological features) factors in the wolves’ habitat.

• Impacts on wolf behavior

  1. Food provision and hunting behavior: Do wolves have access to anthropogenic food sources, such as poorly guarded livestock or garbage? How does human activity affect wolves’ access to prey? This could include an increase or decrease in the density of prey populations due to human feeding and/or hunting; changes in prey behavior, either through direct impact on prey such as hunting, or indirectly through changes in their habitat; and changes in the health of prey, e.g. due to diseases transmitted by livestock or through anthropogenic feeding structures; or due to human hunting objectives (focus on trophy animals or elimination of sick, old, and weak animals). Do wolves change their diet or their strategies for obtaining food?

  2. Other behavior: Are there observable shifts in the wolves’ daily routines, such as increased nocturnal activity in response to decreased human presence during the night? Additionally, do they modify their seasonal behaviors? This could manifest as adjustments in breeding timelines – opting to mate earlier or later in the year – or altering their migratory patterns. Furthermore, it is pertinent to explore whether there are any changes in other facets of their social and reproductive behavior.

• Direct physical impacts: This includes direct impacts such as human hunting, trapping and poisoning of wolves, as well as catching and sedating wolves for collaring and other research purposes.

In parallel to these aspects, a multifaceted assessment of the wolves’ impact on human communities is essential, examining the following dimensions:

• Impacts on human habitat: This encompasses wolves’ effects on prey populations, including changes in abundance, health, and behavior. It also involves the resulting trophic cascades that reverberate throughout the ecosystem, influencing a spectrum of fauna and flora, as well as landscape characteristics. Proximity to human settlements is also a critical factor, considering the potential for direct interactions.

• Impacts on human behavior:

  1. Food provision and hunting behavior: This aspect scrutinizes the alterations in game populations due to wolf predation and consequent shifts in human hunting practices, as well as the necessary adjustments in livestock management. Questions arise as to whether there is a transformation in traditional practices, such as the adaptation of hunting strategies, including changes in the employment of hunting dogs or the use of different equipment.

  2. Other behavior: It is crucial to investigate if there is a change in human engagement with the natural environment. This might manifest as a decrease in outdoor recreational pursuits or in the collection of natural resources like berries and mushrooms. Temporal modifications in the use of outdoor spaces, such as reduced activity during nocturnal hours, are also of interest.

• Direct physical impacts: This area delves into direct confrontations, such as wolf attacks or perceived threats to humans and domestic animals, including pets like dogs and cats. An analytical approach to the frequency and characteristics of these interactions, especially in proximity to human dwellings, is necessary for a comprehensive understanding.

The data underpinning these analyses could come from a variety of sources, such as observations of the local population augmented by spatial and temporal insights obtained from GPS-collared wolves. Additionally, the examination of carcasses – both of prey species and wolves themselves – serves as a critical indicator of wolf- and human-induced harm. The analysis is further enriched by the investigation of wolves’ scat, which provides tangible evidence of their diet, including livestock and wild game, among other components.

Benefits and Harms

In a second step, the impacts examined in the first step have to be evaluated in terms of advantages and disadvantages, or benefits and harms. This includes a consideration of human interests as well as the interests of non-human entities, fostering a holistic understanding of the broader ecological and societal impact. Evaluating the reciprocal benefits and harms for both humans and wolves, as well as other relevant stakeholders, provides a comprehensive basis for ethical deliberation. Recognizing the temporal dimension allows for a more holistic understanding of the ethical considerations surrounding the relationship.

Broadly speaking, the negative impacts on wolves encompass both direct anthropogenic interventions, such as culling and regulated hunting, and indirect perturbations, such as habitat degradation and fragmentation. Conversely, it is equally important to consider the negative effects wolves have had on human communities and domesticated species, including psychological distress, physical harm, and predation.

The reciprocal interactions also extend to mutual benefits. For humans, these may manifest as enhanced ecosystem functionalities, including but not limited to, trophic cascade effects that regulate ungulate populations and thereby mitigate forest overgrazing. Wolves, in turn, may derive advantages from anthropogenic landscapes, such as improved shelter opportunities within human infrastructures and increased availability of food resources as a result of human activities.

For a thorough grasp of the effects and to facilitate an effective juxtaposition of the positive and negative impacts, it is critical to categorize and assess the different factors according to their impact levels: substantial, moderate, or minor. Although this approach may simplify the complex interplay of varied harms and benefits, it is likely the most appropriate method for deriving ethical considerations. This is particularly true given the disparate perspectives on what qualifies as a significant impact and the magnitude of such impacts. It is recommended that a discussion be held between all stakeholders to determine the level of impact.

If we assume general negative duties toward all sentient animals, and additional positive duties responsibilities in instances where harm has already been inflicted – as advocated by relational ethics frameworks like those of Palmer, and Donaldson and Kymlicka – a meticulous evaluation of the benefits and detriments resulting from our interactions with wolves becomes pivotal. Such an analysis facilitates a nuanced comparison between the advantages and disadvantages experienced by each party involved. Ultimately, this approach aids in elucidating those areas where ongoing harm necessitates cessation and highlights situations where either party has experienced disproportionate harm or benefit, thereby underscoring the need for moral rectification.

Individual Relations

While the first two steps of analysis are conducive to be carried out on a larger scale, the focus of the third step is on the specific relations between individuals or small groups, including historical interactions and their progression. It is crucial to discern the relevance and applicability of the findings from the first steps to the individuals involved. This is especially pertinent at the level of individual wolves or packs, which demonstrate variable behavior in relation to humans, and at the level of human communities or settlements, but in some cases also isolated households or distinct ideological factions within these communities. An individualized approach is key to ensuring that ethical considerations are accurately tailored to the specific circumstances of each unique interaction, providing a robust foundation for ethical deliberation and policy-making. Key questions for this analysis include: Have certain wolves or packs developed problematic behaviors, such as a predilection for livestock or pets? Have interactions with humans – whether through feeding or provocation – contributed to these patterns? What is the nature of past encounters, both positive and hostile, between specific wolves and human individuals or groups?

Case Study: Applying the Framework to the Slettås Wolf Pack in Norway

The Slettås wolf pack, resident in the forested regions of south-eastern Norway in the so-called wolf zone, has been viewed particularly negatively due to their perceived proximity to human settlements. As a result, the pack’s existence and behavior have been subjects of meticulous ecological study and provide valuable data on the adaptive strategies and social structures of wolves in human-adjacent environments. Despite the pack’s contribution to the ecological richness and biodiversity of the region, the apprehension within local communities highlights the dual need for conservation strategies that protect wildlife while addressing and mitigating human-wolf conflicts (Wabakken et al., 2018). For these reasons, it is a good example, well supported by data, of how to examine a particularly controversial relationship between a pack of wolves and the local human community.

If we examine the pack using the framework set out above, we can identify the following impacts in the first step of the analysis:

• Impacts on wolf habitat: As is the case in most parts of Scandinavia, the wolves’ habitat has been heavily affected by humans, through infrastructure such as roads and settlements, forestry and other nature uses, as well as human presence. As in most other regions of the world, we can also expect impacts of anthropogenic climate change on their habitat.

• Impacts on wolf behavior:

  1. Food provision and hunting behaviors: While sheep and more generally livestock farming in Slettås has declined over the last decades, there are still reports of wolf attacks on sheep. The high density of moose in previous decades, which was due to their population management by humans, has also declined. In addition, human hunting, especially with dogs, affects the wolves’ access to moose. One of the studies by Wabakken et al. (2018) shows that the Slettås wolves come close to settlements mostly when it is necessary for hunting and in the dark, when there is low human activity.

  2. Other behavior: The data from Wabakken et al. (2018) suggests that the Slettås pack indeed is changing its behavior in order to maintain a higher distance to humans, which includes their choice of denning sites, and the times of day when they are active.

• Direct physical impacts: In addition to direct physical non-lethal influences, such as scientific assessments and collaring while sedated, wolves in Norway are prone to illegal and legal killings (Kaltenborn & Brainerd, 2016) and are thus heavily influenced by humans. The Slettås pack has been collared and researched and since 2019, several wolves have been shot in the Slettås territory (Vogt & Nordby, 2022).

The same impact analysis should be carried out for the human side. For reasons of space, however, I will proceed directly to an evaluation of the harms and benefits on both sides. The third step, an examination of the individual relationships, should, where possible, be discussed with the parties concerned and is therefore not included in this theoretical paper.

Table

	On wolves		On humans
Impacts	Positive	Negative	Positive	Negative
On habitat
– direct	Minor (easier travel on roads)	Substantial (habitat fragmentation by roads and settlements)	Moderate (increased ecosystem health, benefits for forestry and timber industry)	–
– indirect	–	Moderate (habitat degradation through climatic changes)	–	Minor/moderate (presence of wolves leads to fear)
On behavior
– food supply	Moderate (access to livestock, higher moose density)	Minor (moose hunting)	Minor (healthier game populations)	Substantial (changes in hunting and livestock management and resulting economic losses due to predation)
– others	–	Moderate (avoid humans)	Minor (opportunities for wildlife tourism and recreational activities such as wildlife watching)	Moderate (fear resulting in fewer outdoor activities; more work to care for children, livestock, and animals)
Direct	–	Substantial (sedated, collared, researched, killed)	–	Minor (no attacks on humans, but on companion animals)

The analysis suggests that the negative impacts predominate for both parties, which confirms the importance of competition in the relations between the pack and human communities. However, there is a considerably greater impact of human activities on the Slettås wolf pack, exacerbated by the instances of wolf culling in the region. Under the premise of inherent duties to minimize harm to sentient beings, and the moral imperative to redress past harms, it becomes clear that efforts must be directed toward halting negative impacts and initiating reparative actions. Regarding the harmful behavior exhibited by the wolves, implementing non-lethal deterrents, such as the erection of protective fences or the use of flaglines to delineate human-occupied zones, may serve as effective strategies.

Conclusion and Discussion

This paper has ventured into the intricate ethical landscape of wolf management, advocating for a paradigm shift based on relational ethics and acknowledging that our moral obligations toward wolves are multifaceted and context-dependent. Through our exploration, it has become evident that the conventional dichotomies of wild versus domesticated animals do not sufficiently capture the complexities of human-wolf relations. My analysis reveals that wolves, historically perceived as symbols of untamed wilderness, now frequently inhabit spaces that are significantly influenced by human activities. This intersection has reshaped the existence of wolves, rendering them neither entirely wild nor entirely domesticated, but often residing in a liminal space that demands a nuanced ethical consideration and calls for a reevaluation of our ethical responsibilities. This approach encourages us to view wolves not just as ecological entities but as beings that are part of a larger moral community, intricately connected to humans through shared environments and histories.

However, because the relationships between individuals and communities vary more than can be captured in the category of ‘liminal’, we need to go beyond these categories. Furthermore, classifying wolves, both as a collective and as individuals, within a relational ethical framework is complex due to the subjective nature of such classifications. The disagreement among people about how to classify wolves, and the resulting subjective nature of any categorization, underscore the complexity of determining our ethical obligations toward them. Given these challenges, this paper argues that our focus should shift from general obligations to a more nuanced consideration of individual wolves or packs and human communities in line with Dubois et al.‘s (2017) principle of basing control on the specifics of each situation.

To navigate this complexity, I advocate for three steps in the assessment of a specific wolf or wolf pack. First, the mutual impacts between humans and wolves have to be determined. In a second step, these impacts are evaluated to determine how harmful and beneficial they are to all interest groups. In a third step, the relations between individual humans and wolves or small groups such as packs and human communities will be considered. Even though this individualized approach poses practical difficulties, it allows us to tailor our actions according to the specific context. Based on these evaluations, we can then determine the resulting ethical obligations.

This assessment underscores the importance of considering the diverse realities of human-wolf interactions in ethical deliberations and policy-making, promoting a more informed approach to wildlife management. This varied spectrum of impacts between wolves and humans has profound implications for wildlife ethics and management. It suggests the need for a more nuanced understanding of human-wolf interactions, one that goes beyond traditional binary classifications. By doing so, we can ensure that our actions are not only ecologically sound but also morally conscious, reflecting a deep respect for the intrinsic value of wolves and the complex web of relationships they share with us. This understanding is critical in formulating ethical wildlife policies that are context-sensitive and reflective of the complex realities of human-wolf coexistence. Future research should further explore our obligations toward wolves and other species involved in these conflicts, particularly when these obligations compete with one another.

Disclosure Statement

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

Notes

1. In addition to looking at the mutual impacts in human-wolf relationships, the relationships with and between other affected species such as sheep, moose, and dogs need to be assessed. However, this is beyond the scope of this paper.