Insects, spiders and animal ethics

Most terrestrial invertebrates are not covered by animal ethics regulations. Dr Leilani Walker (Te Whakatōhea, Thai), a behavioural ecologist, shares her views about working with invertebrate species.

Questions for discussion 

• At 00:44, Leilani injects carbon dioxide gas into the tube to calm the tiny jumping spider prior to placing it in the plastic dish for observation. Why might she want to calm the spider? 

• What are your thoughts about respecting and caring for invertebrates like spiders and insects compared to mammals and birds? 

Transcript

Dr Leilani Walker

As someone who works on spiders and insects, the interesting thing for me is that they actually aren’t covered by animal regulations in this country. I am not required to go through any kind of ethics process in order to work with insects either in the environment or in the lab.

I think why insects have been exempted is in part the assumption that they’re too simple an animal. There’s this sense that oh maybe they don’t feel pain, maybe they don’t experience stress in the same way that what we might call a higher animal – like a cow or a pig or a bird – might experience that.

For me personally, it doesn’t matter that there’s no law saying please don’t unnecessarily harm your spiders or cause undue stress or take too many or things like that. I feel quite comfortably guided by my own principles there.

I guess that, more broadly, does it mean that as society we don’t adequately care for insects, spiders – whether in terms of conservation or what protections we provide them, because I think that they do feel pain and I think they do experience some level of stress. That’s different to other animals but I think that it’s there.

There’s also just the dignity of the individual species. This thing that we sort of naturally seem to afford to mammals and birds and things like that. Why can’t we also say, well, this is a really important taonga species that only lives here. Why is it less important because it has six legs and an exoskeleton, you know? 

AcknowledgementsDr Leilani Walker, Auckland University of Technology
Advisors: Professor Georgina Tuari Stewart and Dr Sally Birdsall
Dairy cows, University of Waikato Te Whare o Wānanga o Waikato and DairyNZ 
Kiwi in bush, and Australian huntsman spider (Delena cancerides), DOC. CC BY 3.0
Takahē, CMKM Stephens. CC BY 3.0