Culling, Relational Decision Making, and Capabilities: A Perspective from India

<p dir="ltr">Culling of animals has been globally considered as a legitimate and cost-effective public health intervention to prevent zoonotic diseases. This practice has been widely used against poultry in bird flu outbreaks, against sheep and cattle in foot and mouth disease outbreaks, and was applied to cull the entire mink population in Denmark in 2020 when infections with SARS-CoV-2 were confirmed. This paper discusses several ethical arguments against this practice including animal rights, the One Heath approach and bioethics as the love of life. This paper includes data from field research, as well as religious and cultural factors. Focusing on India, the paper argues for the inclusion of elements from social justice theory that can actually help to address the ‘fairness’ issues in the ethical decision making of culling practices in the country. A capability approach-based decision-making process to maintain just and fair processes of culling in India involving farmers, governmental agencies, animal welfare personnel and other actors is suggested. The applicability of various approaches to practices that have more social resistance such as the culling of pets including domestic cats and dogs, will also be examined, in the context of potential policy reform that may challenge the anthropocentric views that dominate the practice of culling in public and planetary health.</p>