Texas Fauna Project

Piping Plover

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In 2007, a Galveston birder shot a feral cat that was stalking an endangered piping plover. The shooting brings up fraught ethical issues about how to weigh competing moral values, such as protecting endangered species versus ensuring individual animal welfare. The philosopher Bob Fischer argues that sometimes numbers can be used to help make the decision. For instance, a cat might kill tens, hundreds or thousands of animals in its lifetime, justifying killing the one cat to save its many prey.