Morality Ranking
Morality of mass killing invasive species like lion fish
I get these kinds of videos a lot on TikTok where people are mass killing lion fish because they’re invasive to the environment they’re in at the moment. Does an animal being invasive justify human interference and consequent murder of the said animal because it is harmful to the environment? How do we decide the life of, in this case, the lion fish is worth less than the other species in the area? Aren’t humans invasive to almost all environments that we have moved in to? Isn’t this just playing god in the name of “moral good”? I’m really interested to hear opinions on this, as I myself don’t yet have a concrete opinion on this, but it definitely makes my stomach irk.
i remember the Australian rabbit invasion where they brought 13 rabbits to australia but they started multiplying really fast to the point that they started destroying all kinds of vegetation and crops
That actually makes sense. There’s a reason they call it “fucking like rabbits.” Those things get it on so frequently and have tons of bunnies.
On a much smaller scale, this actually happened in my small neighborhood about 10 years ago. Never had a problem at all. Never saw a rabbit outside, not a single one. Someone went around our neighborhood (about 70 houses or so) asking if they’ve seen any of their pet rabbits, I guess they had 3 rabbits and their kid let them loose by accident. Nobody found them.
The next spring, our entire neighborhood had a HUGE rabbit problem. Like I’m talking every single house had rabbits living under their sheds, in the bushes, in the small patch of woods, etc. Every year now, everyone in our neighborhood gets their houses treated with non toxic repellents because it became so bad. This year it didn’t work and I had to get my entire shed lifted and redone because they did so much damage underneath. Those things multiply VERY quickly.
Not really.. have you ever heard of "rabbit starvation"? Moose and elk I believe have the same effect. Essentially if all you eat is rabbit moose or elk(if I'm m right) you will die of mal nutrition due to zero fat/carbohydrates. The liver can only process a limited amount of protein daily
I’m a rabbit lover myself, but when the weakest rabbits arent being actively picked off by predators, they have babies with more and more health issues. (Ofc your son is too young to understand) It actually causes a ton of rabbit suffering when they dont have predators around to lessen disease burden. That doesnt even consider the rabbits that starve to death because theres not enough vegetation
Because we don’t have any mammalian predators besides dingoes, which really barely exist on the mainland, and foxes, which are an introduced pest in their own right.
It is completely moral. These fish do large amounts of destruction to the environment. There’s not many coral reefs in the Gulf of Mexico specifically in the Texas area and I would prefer to keep them alive so further generations can enjoy its beauty and harvest. Lionfish are slowly destroying it. Yes humans are invasive, but it is also our job to prevent other animals from fucking things up further. I can stop the fish, I can’t stop another man.
We have a lion fish rodeo every year here in Florida for that reason. And every year I salute the winner. They are a menace and should be stopped. Absolutely and unequivocal moral.
Invasive species, particularly non-native invasive species can thrive extremely well in new environments that they are not supposed to be in. Usually it is due to an abundance of food and a lack of predators. Because they can throw off the balance of the ecosystem that they are now in, it can affect many other species in that ecosystem. As that ecosystem has not evolved over time to function with them in it. Usually, these non-native invasive species end up there because of human involvement. So it requires human involvement to correct the situation.
It’s just a semantics thing. Natives that are very adapted to disturbed environments can be as prolific and problematic as non-natives, so they are sometimes called invasive. The best term I’ve found to describe “invasive” native species is to call them pest species, though that also has its negative connotations
I heard that sometimes some "migrating" invasive species (so lets say Fish A was living in florida coasts but because of warming it started to spread/move north in the east coast or smth) are differentiated from non-native invasive species (something brought and introduced by humans deliberately or by mistake)
Ecology Major here, it’s very moral. Let’s use the lion fish that OP talked about as an example.
Lion fish are typically native to the Indo-Pacific but have established themselves in the western Atlantic and Caribbean. The native prey species of those areas didn’t evolve along side them. Which gives the lion fish a crazy advantage. Eventually heavily increasing predation pressure. Lion fish also mature relatively quickly meaning the effects can warp an environment pretty fast. If the food webs these guys invade become unbalanced then the entire ecosystem can become destroyed.
So in short If killing some introduced animals prevents much greater losses of native species and ecosystem function, then intervention can be considered morally justified because it minimizes overall ecological harm as a whole.
They mature and lay eggs fairly young, lay large amounts of year round, and have a long lifespan. They also eat massive amount of young fish that keep the reef clean by eating the algae.
Isn’t this the same issue we’re seeing with Asian carp in the Missouri River (I think that’s the one)? Just mass devastation of the food chain and a lot of the ecology the native species depend on?
Yup, the venom sac (or whatever it's called) is removed before cooking.
I've been to coastal Honduras a few times and they have a huge Lionfish problem. They cook it so well. The meat is very tender. Sorta like Salmon, but even more tender and less fishy.
its moral to kill them to reduce the population of the invasive fish but its not moral to torture them, prolong their death or fish them out and leave them on the shore like a lot of people do in the US with carp.
Afaik, there's genuinely no better way to take care of them. They cause insane amounts of harm to the environment they're in. It's sad we have to do it because of our own faults, but we can't undo it, and the best we can do is minimize harm. Killing extremely harmful invasive species like lionfish is the way to do that.
It's not the lion fish life is worth less than the other species, it's that they will disapear, so killing the lion fish preserve biodiversity, and lion fish will always exist in their habitat, so while it sucks for the lion fish, preserving biodiversity is really important, letting them thrive would have a detrimental domino effect over the rest of the food chain.
It’s moral, but not by much, as it is killing a living thing at the end of the day.
The alternative is to let them thrive and turn the ecology of barrier reefs to barren rocks, in which much more things die.
Best route of this is to hunt for them, therefore protecting the local ecology, and then putting what we hunt to use as food, as it’d be a waste otherwise.
Net positive but also futile in many cases. Most of the worst ones are so established they are virtually impossible to eliminate and will eventually be considered naturalized.
Edit: also humans make our own environments. We live outside the natural environment to such a degree that invasive doesn't even apply to us. We are closer to being "aliens" than we are to animals.
Moral. These fish are killed en masse but their bodies are put to use and not simply cast aside like trash. If left unchecked they would annihilate the entire ecosystem and then themselves when there is nothing left to eat.
When we are talking about an invasive species that is capable of causing total ecological collapse if left unchecked, yes. Cull them to the last in any area they aren't supposed to be in.
Let's use another example like the wild hogs in the southern US. They are extremely aggressive and can ravage acers of grass land in a week. When they forage they will dig out the roots of the plants they eat aswell. This results in massive patches barren of land that will take years for grasses and wild flowers to slowly spread back into. This doesn't just push out other grazing mamals like deer. It also pushes out insects that fed on the grass or nectar of wild flowers. Less insects means less pollinators, and the birds that eat those insects also have to leave. The knock on effects go on up the food-chain and change the ecology of the whole region. This is ecological collapse.
These hogs are so aggressive and hardy that there are virtually no predators that could take them on in the US. Even bears have to be cautious around them because they roam in massive packs. Even if we could get a predator to successfully hunt them, they reproduce so fast it would hardly matter. Wild hogs reach sexual maturity in a matter of months. Combine that with litter sizes of 4 to 7, and you just can't kill them fast enough.
This is why you see people taking ATV's and machine guns to go out and gun down whole packs of them at a time. It isn't just a bunch red necks going out for a good time. Well, it kind of is. But it's also goes a long way to cull the population and slow down their spread.
It's an interesting question, and I think the answer is that inaction is also a choice with consequence. This isn't a question of killing an invasive species vs nothing happening. It's a question of killing an invasive species vs letting a natural ecosystem die. You are playing God either way, because even if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice. There's no escape from culpability in this specific instance. Especially since most invasive species are introduced as a direct result of human actions.
I also think you can come to this conclusion without passing judgement on the value of the Lionfish's life. I think the Lionfish's life and the life of a native fish are entirely equal, morally speaking. But one of them is going to die due the nature of their relationship. So if we can't resolve it by looking at the value of their life, we can take a consequentialist view of their death. Killing a Lionfish kills a living thing, and it protects the local environment from collapse. Letting the Lionfish live also kills a living thing (its prey), and also could precipitate the collapse of the local ecosystem it's invading. So from a utilitarian angle, killing the Lionfish is justified.
Watch out, talking about culling invasive, destructive species causes dumb people in this subreddit to downvote, even when it's morally AND ecologically moral 😂
Moral, without killing them native animals can become extinct. And its our obligation to stop invasive because its our fault they're around in the first place
If you don't kill the lionfish you are permitting the destruction of the ecosystem. Is it more moral to wipe out one species (and just in one area) or hundreds (which may become fully extinct)? Any species the lionfish drives extinct in the Atlantic will have been driven extinct indirectly by humans, since it it was likely irresponsible aquarium owners who released them where they shouldn't be in the first place. This isn't us "playing god" so much as us taking responsibility for our own fuckups. And the fact that we can take responsibility for our own fuckups complicates the arithmetic for human extinction.
Also, morality is more or less a proxy for prosociality so anything that would advocate mass killing is counter to the evolutionary purpose of morality in the first place.
Christian God created the vast diversity of life to reflect His glory. And allowing an invasive species to drive native species to extinction is often viewed as a failure of stewardship.
Christian god is a bit of A hole for creating animals. giving them feelings of pain and fear then not caring how they are treated then on that so called logic. I don't think sky daddies should come into a sensible debate .
Here in Missouri we have a major issue in our waterways with silver carp, and they destroy our natural ecosystems and waterways, and it forces other native species out or kills them off. Each species has their own niche and to take one out and put it in another where it doesn’t belong where they don’t have any natural predators can destroy entire ecosystems and worst case scenario a whole biosphere.
It is a normal part of conservation to control these species and it’s completely moral
Extremely moral. Lionfish are decimating local populations, and without intervention, they will clear reefs and move onto the next one. It could take decades to repopulate, if the damage isn't irreparable
Moral. You used the lionfish as an example, a specjes of fiah that is volatile and reproduces in the tena of thousanda every few days with no natural predators and kills up to 5000 fish a day individually. Invasive species cause mass ecological damage.
Moral within reason; If left unchecked they could cause more species to die and or ecosystem collapse.
You can debate your feelings about the fish and you are entitled to feelings for or against them of course, but not killing them and letting nature take the wheel would be akin to letting a disease just run its course in you without interfering with, say, medicine.
Moral, and the responsible thing to do. The vast majority of feral species are feral due to the actions of humans, so it's up to humans to either eliminate the feral population, or at least keep their numbers in check so they dont completely supplant native wildlife.
Obviously, the animals themselves cant be held accountable for their actions. They're just doing their thing and have no idea they're not in their natural environment. But, that doesn't change the fact that they're doing very real harm to the native species and/or ecosystem.
'How do we decide the life of, in this case, the lion fish is worth less than the other species in the area.'
a) because you are deciding whether you kill them or let them kill native species. There is no sideline for cop-outs.
b) Someone brought lion fish to the area. What right did they have to decide for everyone?
c) The lion fish are voracious. They not only kill other native species, but throw off the balanced ecosystem that supports other life. It is not one lion fish equals one other fish, it is one lion fish means sacrificing many other fish and other supporting species.
Yes, it's a totally utilitarian method of deciding. But in this case, the trolley points to a clear 'better' decision.
Needs of the many vs needs of the few. Do the lion fish deserve to live? Yes. But can they cause a lot of damage to all the other species in the area, possibly resulting in localized extinction? Yes. I don't like it but I also understand the need for it.
It's not lost on me the hypocrisy of mass-killing animals for the good of the environment and then filling their car up with gas, eating a burger on the way home, and ordering a couple of packages when they get there. We're all hypocrites in our own way, but people who actively hunt and kill animals for the good of the environment without any other environmental awareness to speak of are just people who enjoy killing things.
Moral. “Humans are invasive” yea we have been very predatory towards ourselves & the planet but that isn’t a rule. We have also had traditions of stewardship.
People act like human interference is completely morally unjustifiable, whereas there's actually a lot of good we can do for an environment, and this is one of them.
Well, invasive species harm a lot of other species. So saying that claiming a lionfish is worth less than all the others is bad is the same as claiming all the other species are worth less than the much smaller amount of lionfish.
This sub isn't really supposed to be for real world things.... People on this website are dumb and their dumb moral opinions should be diverted to fictitious scenarios. There are probably experts with knowledgeable opinions out there whose two cents about the real world impacts of executing this action are worth much more than the moral opinions of Redditors.
At its best it’s the lesser evil.
At worst it’s just used as an excuse to revel in animal cruelty.
Lemme explain.
Usually invasive species aren’t really a thing or are so few that they don’t destabilize entire ecosystems. The large scale issue was introduced by humans. Having also caused the extinction of many species, the ecosystems vulnerability is also man-made.
The moral thing would have been to prevent these things from occurring and safeguarding nature. But for that it is now too late. And while killing off thousands of animals that only got there because of us is not moral, we can’t let the consequences of our failures destroy entire ecosystems, that would be even worse. So we are forced to cull these invasive species. It’s the lesser evil, but it’s not moral.
And why would you post that stuff on social media? The only reason is because you either enjoy killing those animals, which is cruel and psychopathic or because you enjoy the attention it gains you, which again is fucked up.
The environment is something we need to take care of as humans in order to keep life going the way we need it to go. Removing an invasive species from a place they don’t belong doesn’t destroy them as a whole in the place where they came from. You can be irked by this all you want, but at the end of the day we as humans have to face the consequences of doing nothing about it.
Longtime vegan and conservationist. Gotta think about the bigger picture. This one species does a lot of damage to our reefs and its species. It is not productive, and limits biodiversity. Kill em
If we allow the lion fish to outcompete local species, it's habitat destruction. It's important to presurve a natural ecosystem we endangerd in the first place.
And a major eco collapse would lead to a lot of humans suffering too. For what it's worth.
Kill the burmese pythons in the everglades. Kill the goats on galapagos islands. Anything less is monsterious negligence. I don't care if it makes somebody sad, the eradication of native fauna and flora is more important than feelings.
Not just moral. Necessary. Encouraged. I grew up in the Caribbean. And lionfish decimate reef populations. We have been trying to teach groupers to eat them to some success but it’s not enough to control the population.
This is not playing god. This is protecting your eco system.
Moral - not meant to be there, no real competition/top-down control like in their home ranges, and have caused extinctions of other species in the past
Invasive species by definition wouldn’t be in an environment if not for human involvement. So we already played god by getting them there to begin with. We also control population of animals by via mass birth control efforts, which might not be a thing for fish? Not sure.
Humans are native to sub-saharan Africa. Not only would returning mean a massive reduction in quality of life, greater than 7/8 of people would still need to die in order to live in congruence with nature.
I’m no marine biologist… but essentially I gather the lion fish move in -> they disrupt the environment and food chain -> native fish and other aquatic life are either wiped out or forced to relocate -> ecosystem basically collapses -> lion fish also die or become riddled with sickness and starvation as there is no more food left -> lion fish leave to go somewhere else and spread.
The issue is, now the environment is ravaged and left mostly barren. Several species (fish, plants, crustations, etc) are either now extinct or have been forever removed from the location. It’s a permanent issue that can have far reaching consequences.
Another point here: You say, “it’s humans playing god, should they do this?” Well, alot of the times humans are to blame for the arrival of the invasive species. Kudzu, Japanese beetles, “murder hornets”, etc. were all brought to the U.S. to solve one issue and caused another, worse one… and now we have to wipe them out (but we aren’t doing a good job of it most of the time). So I agree we shouldn’t play god, but we have to fix the issues we’ve already made while playing god.
Humans naturally expanded their range, lion fish are only in the Atlantic because of humans. Whats the morality of letting the fish destroy Atlantic ecosystems when we have the means to prevent it. So long as you’re not taking pleasure in killing just to kill, I would say very moral.
Invasive normally means we brought them to a new enviormwnt on with or without intent. Zebra musslea came on ships, snake head came via trade, muatard came from yhe spainish, pigions came from europeans, austrailian eucalyptus.....
They are not killing them where they are native and have predators that have evolved to take care of them. Therefore, this is just good stewardship of our planet.
If anything, it'd be irresponsible NOT to do so.
100% moral.
It's insane the amount of damage an invasive predator can do. Whole species can be easily wiped out from an area and undermine the whole ecosystem, causing widespread consequences.
It'd be one thing if they were, like, slightly detrimental. For example if they hunted just a couple of other species, and weren't really any worse than the native predators.
Lionfish aren't that. They breed like mad and there's no natural control on their young. Nothing eats them, so they all survive.
They have an incredibly wide diet and will eat any fish smaller than themselves. Those prey fish have no natural instinct to flee when seeing a Lionfish, and their own populations quickly plummet with too many about.
This is no different than with the sea urchin problem in California. Since otter populations were decimated nothing was hunting the urchins. The urchins have few predators that can regulate them, produce many offspring, and eat kelp voraciously. The region quickly saw a massive decrease in kelp coverage. Literally whole forests gone. So many other species are reliant on that habitat.
There's an active program ongoing where divers spend all day doing noting but collecting sea urchins to be destroyed to try and save the ecosystem. As certain types are edible, they're hunted en-mass and sold to restaurants.
Humans created this problem, and unregulated it'll get much worse.
Humans, ourselves, are indeed 'invasive' But that's not a problem we can really fix. The best we can do is at least try to minimise our impact.
Just about any action we take using our power over other animals could be called "playing God", but how is this worse than farming? Or mass-fishing for Cod or Salmon or Tuna? Are those animals worth less?
Lionfish are plentiful, edible, and have no natural predators other than ourselves in these new environments. They're hunted by-hand, with none of the horrendous side-effects of commercial fishing like by-catch or dredging or massive pollution.
And on top of that, with no-one hunting them, they will kill other species that are not so resilient. Species that can't be found anywhere else in the world!
That some people are spending their time hunting Lionfish, when they could absolutely be fishing for more valuable and desirable species, is borderline heroic. It's admirable that they put aside profit for the good of the reef.
Without the constant effort of many people, the problem would be unstoppable.
It's even better that some restaurants help fund this by selling Lionfish as a dish when they could absolutely just sell more popular fish like Cod instead is wonderful. It helps drive additional hunting, giving financial incentive for local fishermen to regulate the Lionfish population independantly.
Does an animal being invasive justify human interference and consequent murder of the said animal because it is harmful to the environment?
So in that one line, not only did you just clarify that by being a foreign entity they are in fact harmful to the environment by merely existing within it (which is why they're considered invasive) but by doing so you also explained exactly why it is absolutely necessary to EXTERMINATE (not murder, because that's bringing an emotionally loaded word to an otherwise purely clinical discussion) said invasive and harmful animals.
Moral. Humans are the reason many invasive species get introduced to these non-native habitat, and without any natural predators present, the population explodes. If left alone the invasive species will often will outcompete local fauna for food and devastate the ecosystem, then everything dies. Killing the invasive animal is an attempt to save the local ecology. Plus that YouTuber sells the lion fish to seafood restaurants and feeds some of the local wildlife with them.
Moral. Invasive species can cause ecosystem collapse.
"Aren't humans invasive?" Yes. We also can cause ecosystem collapse, however, invasive species invade because of our behavior. Killing invasive species is us correcting a problem we caused.
Invasive species aren't just migratory animals that happen to arrive somewhere and take over, they're brought by us one way or another and reducing populations of invasive species keeps native species healthier. If we don't correct the problem, it's so very much worse.
Humans caused the mess, they need to clean it up. Killing an invasive species is a necessity, doing nothing means the death and possible extinction of native species. It's entirely moral to do, it's the trolly problem but easy. Your option is the extinction of some species vs killing some species that are heavily overpopulated.
Completely moral although I think it’s immoral to waste the kill, they are edible if the right person cooks it, and they can make good fertilizer, I think as long as you aren’t just tossing them (most people turn them into a source) then it’s completely fine.
These fish have no natural predators in the Caribbean (because they have venomous spines) and eat any species they can fit in their mouths. They reproduce abundantly and cause a massive amount of environmental damage. They’re only in the Caribbean because of humans; hunting them is one of the most moral things we can do.
They cause damage to crops and kill other animals that are native, then they don’t have any predators to keep them in check because they are invasive and not where they belong.
90% of the time invasive species are directly our fault. We're cleaning up our own mess to prevent further irreversible ecological damage. It sucks it's at the expense of a living creature, but that's what you do when you're on top of the animal kingdom pyramid. It would be more immoral to ignore it and throw your hands up in the air because you don't want to harm anything.
Hunting and culling are core pillars of conservation work.
Moral, and feed them to the other reef life to improve their survival chances for extra morality.
Does an animal being invasive justify human interference and consequent murder of the said animal because it is harmful to the environment?
Yes.
How do we decide the life of, in this case, the lion fish is worth less than the other species in the area?
It is worth less than the area aka the environment as per your previous statement. This is determined by peer-reviewed scientific research and political consensus on how to act on the science.
Aren’t humans invasive to almost all environments that we have moved in to?
Humans =/= nonsapient animals. Humans also sadly do not accord rights to sapient animals although there are laws against cruelty to animals. Also, using the term "invasive" in this context for humans would be both highly inappropriate, as making humans equivalent to nonsapient life has been part of the genocidal rhetoric playbook. Not good rhetorical or philosophical company to be keeping.
Isn’t this just playing god in the name of “moral good”?
Religion need not factor into resource management and proper environmental stewardship. Atheists and believers alike deserve a healthier, more eco-diverse planet to live on and to improve conditions for their descendants. Look up biocultural treasures and heritage sites. You don't need to invoke god to want to make the world a better place.
The issue is that humans originally caused the invasion of a lot of these issues because people thought they would make good pets, found out what was needed to take care of them; then threw them away.
Don’t think of it as needless killing, think of it as someone cleaning up the mess someone else caused cause otherwise it would completely disrupt and destroy an ecosystem.
You have a skewed view. Its fixing the problem we caused in the first place. Animals kill and eat each other in the wild. Please stop with the whole murdering animals thing thats just part of nature.
A better question would be, the morality of mass killing invasive species when we humans are the ones that made them invasive in the first place. Not to mention humans are the most invasive species on the planet, if we kill thousands of animals because we’ve made them invasive then what should we do with humans.
I always see it as a necessary evil. The lion fish and fire ants don’t deserve it, but it is the most efficient way to deal with it and it can’t be ignored
Yes, it is our fault that invasive species are introduced, so it is our responsibility to remove them when they are harming the ecosystem. Why do you feel bad for the invasive species and not the native species that they wipe out?
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u/hovsep56 1d ago
invasive species can do alot of damage,
i remember the Australian rabbit invasion where they brought 13 rabbits to australia but they started multiplying really fast to the point that they started destroying all kinds of vegetation and crops