Introduction
An invasive species can be construed to mean any organism which has the ability to cause economic or ecologic harm to an environment in which it is not native (Bonn, 2017). They are a threat to the natural ecosystem and the human population of a given location. Invasive species could be responsible for: the reduction in the biodiversity, extinctions of native animals and plants, creation of competition for the limited resources and other unhealthy conditions for the native organisms. Most of the invasive species are introduced into a given environment either accidentally or by people. The paper will describe invasive species, the types and their effect to the environment. An exploration into the type of such species that exist in the island of Oahu, Hawaii and Danube Delta Horses from Romania will provide a picture on the varieties of invasive species that are common in different ecologies. The paper will also identify the connection between invasive species, the human nature, the technology and their environment. How man should deal with invasive species such as Stray Cats on the Island of Oahu, Hawaii and Danube Delta will form an important discussion in the paper. Important theories such as utilitarianism and biophilia and how man should take care of biodiversity. A case scenario on Stray Cats will be presented and the problem overview. Finally, the paper will discuss the business ethics regarding how invasive species are handled, legislation and the reduction of cost of control discussed.
Invasive species are able to survive successfully because they have the ability to compete effectively for the available resources with the native organisms (nationalgeographic.org, 2017). They could exhibit superior feeding patterns than the native organisms. Another advantage that the invasive species have in a new environment is the fact that they could be lacking predators to hunt them down as prey. Some of these species have the ability to multiply first and in the process increase in their population. Invasive species have a history of destroying habitat. In the process, the destructive effects could also be extended to the economy of a given region or even country (nationalgeographic.org, 2017). A good example is the water hyacinth which is a native plant in South America but has caused devastating effect to other water bodies such as in Lake Victoria, Uganda where navigating the water has become a major problem, causing most of the ports to be closed. The plant has the ability to choke other plants and marine life of sunlight which is crucial for their survival. In the end fishing industry was adversely affected which affected the economy of Uganda. Invasive species are known to cause damage to property. In the great lakes regions, the Small zebra mussels have caused damage to water pipes destined for power plants (nationalgeographic.org, 2017).
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Danube Delta Horses from Romania
The Danube Delta is the largest wetland in Europe and was declared a biosphere reserve in the world. The Latea forest is part of the Danube Delta, Romania, which is home to species of plants that are rare to find anywhere in the world. According to historical documents dating 400 years back, original owners of the wild horses upon migration left behind some of their horses that have since multiplied in number. These horses are a threat the protected Marsh land in this forest and are considered invasive species in the region. The resultant effect of all these was that there was a conflict between environmentalists and organizations that campaign for animal rights. To be ethical, four paws which is an organization dealing with animal right had to reach an agreement with environmentalist not to kill the invasive horses but to: control the rate of birth of the horses, assist the injured horses, feed them, use contraceptive to check the birth-rate (four-paws.org.uk, 2016). The Stray Cats on The Island of Oahu, Hawaii have also cause a major concern for the residents in the area. Feral cats are those cats that were born away from the human habitat and contact. They are shy upon meeting humans and in most
Connection between invasive species, human nature, technology, and the environment.
In Europe, the Danube delta is the only delta in the world that is openly pronounced as a biosphere reserve. More so, the delta being the second largest wetland in Europe has the Letea forest which is located in the northeastern side of the Danube Delta is widely known and protected basically because of the rare species. Consequently, it was made a world Heritage site and recognition as a Biosphere Reserve in the year 1990. The Region providing an atmosphere where animals and plants; humans and invasive plants can vivify there has to be some presence of affiliation. Invasive species usually have an impact in the natural ecosystem in Europe. For instance, the invasive species pose threats to native wildlife, human health and economies in that a lot of money each year is spend because of the impact of invasive species. In addition, the region’s agricultural activities, commercial activities, recreational activities and technological activities rely on healthy native ecosystems therefore making it necessary to drive attention and control the invasive species as human beings in order to survive.
The connection between invasive species and human nature can be articulated on how the invasive organisms spread. Primarily, the species spread through human activities in the environment. The human activities which involve travelling round in the region carrying thing like goods apparently move with some of the species either with knowing or without knowing. The stray or feral cats at Honouliuli in Oahu are prefect examples. The cats are wild-living different adaptation group of the common cats considered as pet cats. The cats have the same description to the common pet cats but totally differ in behavior and lifestyle. Human being may keep such endangered species as pet thinking it is a cat since it can live in any type of habitat. The same may apply to the Danube Delta horses around Chilia and Sulina branches of the Danube. Initially, the horses where haunted for domestic purposes such as for recreation while riding and to provide labor.
Besides, depicting the connection of how the invasive species; the wild cats and the horses spread through human operations it is necessary to analyze the impact of the invasive species to the environment in terms of their connection. The environment in Europe comprises of both living and non-living things. The Danube Delta horses have been argued to be a population of feral horses especially in Romania. Living in the Letea reserve which has nature, the horses are considered to be a vivid threat to the natural environment. The horse being in the region for about hundreds years, the number of the feral horses raised after the closure of the collective farms thus being set free. Consequently, the freedom of the horses in turn gradually transformed to be a threat to some plants since their population was not being control. The freeing of the horses led to overgrazing concerns as looming issue. Meanwhile, the cats on the other hand are depicted to be predators of most insects and native birds thus depending on the natural nature for survival. (Medina et al., 2017).
Further, in the year 2002, there emerged controversies on the controlling the population of the invasive species of such horses, the horses were being captured and transported for slaughter in Italy. In the same period, some few organizations stood up object the capture of these horses and advocated that the species had a vital importance in being adapted to the location and even processing natural social behaviors.
Subsequently, in 2009 another push for the removal of the horses, began but due to the incident of some animals carry equine infectious anemia, the removal was not allowed as per the Romania law. Surprisingly, there various organizations with different avocations regarding the management of these horses, some organizations object the removal, others are for the stay the animals whereas, other groups are making attempts to preserve the horse by searching for place to nature them. It is necessary to mention that in 202, the authorities and even environmentalists clearly proposed that killing of these horses is a solution to control their overpopulation. However, the international animal welfare organization FOUR PAW badgered in to make talks and succeeded to develop an action plan to save wild horses of concern. One of the most acceptable is the contraceptive vaccine. Through, the human technology , a vaccine was invented to block fertilization for approximately a year and even more. ("Horses", 2017). Apparently, there still debates on regarding if it is right or wrong to preserve o kill these species.
Trends in controlling invasive species
Since time immemorial human beings have been putting plants inside their houses. This is an example of the extent humans have gone to show their love for other life forms. They have being adorning their buildings with plant species of all sizes. The plants are big benefit to the humankind in many ways. Some of the ways include lowering noise levels, cleaning the air of harmful gases, reduce absenteeism and also lower the levels of carbon dioxide. Edward Wilson introduced the hypothesis that human beings affinity for other living things is what has united all living organisms.
Time to time people have described their ideal location characteristics as being nature. When an individual brings a live plant into their home they are breathing new life there literally. A recent study showed that there are suggestions that plants may listen and talk to each other the same way human beings can.
There have been attempts to give comfort to feral cats and also to feed them but this is a difficult task as there are many stray cats in Hawaii. An estimate showed that the wild cats can increase their population to over 400000 cats in seven years. This clearly shows how a colony of the stray cats quickly grow. A wild cat can be brought into a person’s home at a young age whereby it can be socialized but an individual must have the patience and willingness to take care of the feral cat. , adult cats may take many years to be socialized compared to a young stray cat. This is one of the ways human beings show affection to other living organism.
An invasive species is a fungus, animal or plant variety introduced in a particular place which has a habit of spreading until it starts causing harm to the human economy, environment or human health. The Danube delta horses are an example of invasive species. They are “wild” horses in Romania in Europe which reside in the Danube Delta. The feral horses are considered to be a danger to forest’s flora. Their number in the region increased greatly after the collective farmers made a decision to close down and the horses the owned they set them free. There are concerns that overgrazing has become an emerging problem as the Letea population is not regulated. There is an ongoing project with the World Wide Fund for nature to look for a way to eradicate the “wild” horses as they are believed to damage the environment.
Another example of invasive species are the stray cats on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Wild cats are feral species of the regular common pet cat. The Europeans introduced the stray cats to Hawaii. The feral cats are found on the eight main islands of Hawaii and are a threat to the native wild animals of Hawaii and are also major contributors of the ecological disruptions that are spread widely. The stray cats are also involved in spreading of Toxoplasma gondii which is a lethal parasite that makes freshwater, marines and terrestrial to be contaminated and this has impacted human beings, birds and mammals negatively as they depend on the water from those sources of water.
Utilitarianism is a moral theory which states that most excellent action is one that maximizes utility. ”Utility” can be defined as the maximum satisfaction an individual gets after consumption of a service or good and it was introduced by Daniel Bernoulli as an economic term. It is important for people to understand the concept of utility of goods or services as it influences the prices of services or goods directly as a result of demand. Consumer behavior theories can be used in indirectly measuring of consumer’s utility as they have the assumption that consumers strive hard to maximize on their utility as it is hard to measure a consumer’s utility directly.
The most prevalent and well known forms of consequentialism is utilitarianism. Consequentialism can be referred to as the state of an action being either wrong or right solely based on the outcome of the activity. Jeremy Bentham is the most influential exponent on utilitarianism currently. He set out an ethical theory in 1789 which was based on the human behavior concept. His understanding of human nature is that people are motivated to pursue pleasure they avoid the way used to follow the pleasure that is the pain encountered. The concepts of “social relations” and “community” were meaningless but useful in social conventions in his opinion he viewed people as being self- centered.
Utility theory is based on three main principles: Egoism, artificial identification of one’s own interest with those of others and the greatest happiness principle or the utility principle. The extent to which an activity bring happiness to an individual is what makes an action to be useful.
Biophilia can be defined as the love which human beings have for other forms of life and their affinity for living in the world. There is a biophilia hypothesis which suggests that people have a tendency to look for connections with other life forms and nature. This is according to Edward O.Wilson.
Business ethics
One of the secrets of success in the corporate world is the observation of business ethics. In definition, business ethics is the study of business policies and practices related to the controversial issues in the corporate world. The law always gives guidelines on business ethics on the other hand business ethics provides a framework that business firms may choose to gain the public acceptance. In simple terms, business ethics make sure that some particular levels of the needed trust exist between the consumers and the firms. This concept of business ethics has been there for quite some time since the 1960s the time when business forms became aware of the rising consumer concern about the environment and corporate responsibility. In other words, business ethics goes beyond the moral code of right or wrong; it tries to show what firms should legally do as they maintain their competitive advantages. Thus, the concept of corporate social responsibility is embedded in the whole concept of business ethics.
Practicing corporate social responsibility is one way of upholding business ethics. It is an ethical practice for business firms to engage in the philanthropic activities and also in environmental conservation. Corporate social responsibility has become common in the modern day firms’ business strategies. One significance attached to corporate social responsibility is that when firms engage in assisting communities and also conserving the environment, they get noticed by the public and the public built trusts in such firms. Thus, firms get public approval and its products get a trusted market. Thus, while the firm would be adhering to business ethics principles, it would be gaining public confidence in its products through corporate social; responsibility activities.
The practice of preserving the stray cats on the island of Hawaii and the Danube delta horses is one way of upholding ethics. The preservation of the wild animals is considered as a corporate social responsibility because it helps in maintaining the natural environment. The Danube delta horses have helped to enrich the biodiversity of the area and also have made this region to be recognized as a world heritage site. This particular piece of land is well known and protected for its rich and rare species of plants and animals.
The population of the horses in the Danube Delta grew exponentially in the 1980s until it raised an alarm among the stakeholders in that the horses started looking for new sources of food and entered into strictly protected forests and fed on the tree barks and on rare plant species. In 2010, it was estimated that over 1500 horses lived in the special area ( 2. Ioer.de. 2012). The authorities and the environmentalists took an act of killing some horses to control the population. After doing it for some time, a concern was raised and there was a decision of using contraceptive vaccination where the horses could be vaccinated to prevent them from conceiving for a certain period ( 2. Ioer.de. 2012). It was unethical and against the corporate social responsibility principles for the authorities to start killing the horses. This was a direct interference with biodiversity.
The stray cats in ton the island of Oahu in Hawaii are other animal species that have received concern from both locals and foreigners. The island is untraditionally filled with feral cats which vary from the common pet cats The feral cats have a reasonable population on all the eight Hawaii islands and Oahu alone has an estimate of about 350,000 cats (Hung, 2014). The large population of the feral cats on the Hawaiian Islands contributes a lot to the ecological disruptions that tend to threaten the native Hawaiian wildlife. The cats are devastating predators of the unique Hawaii wildlife.
In addition, these feral cats are believed to spread lethal parasites commonly known as Toxoplasma gondii a parasite that contaminates the terrestrial freshwater and marine environment (Hung, 2014). Therefore, some people in this region are suggesting launching the killing of these cats to save other species in the ecosystems. While the wild reserves department is against the move of killing the cats (Kvinta, 2016). Therefore, the ethical question that arises from this situation is whether it is ethical to kills all the stray cats or whether it is part of the corporate social responsibility to conserve the vats despite the threat the threat they have to other wildlife.
The case studies of the Danube delta horses and the stray cats in Hawaii are good examples of ethical issues that usually face firms and even government authorities. One main purpose practi8sng ethical values are promoting sustainable development. Sustainable development can only be attained when the society can find ways of operating with minimal interference with other species in the ecosystem. The act of killing the horses and the strays cats could not promote sustainable development. Rather, the authorities could find ways to monitor and control these animals so that the6y do not cause harm to the ecosystem but still co-exists with others. Therefore, ethics provides guidelines on how the society and the business firms should react and act upon various issues that may arise.
Use of Invasive Species in Research.
Animals are used as ‘models’ in biomedical research, in the development of drugs to cure diseases. It is also notable that animals are used in behavioral studies in fields such as psychology and agriculture. In the US, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is charged with the responsibility of undertaking medical research to aid in the development of drugs. With various satellite centers around the country, NIH employs animals` during experimentation in research studies. Animal testing and research generates serious concerns from researchers and activists. The concern is mostly on the animal rights and adherence to bioethics in medical research. The opponents of using animals for testing or experimentation argue that the animals have rights that ought to be respected. Some consider that invasive animals such as stray cats should be used in research.
Ethical considerations are necessary in medical research. In fact, researchers are required to submit details about their trials or experiments to the ethics committee. In biomedical research and clinical trials, researchers have been blamed for subjecting animals to harsh conditions that disregard the animal rights. Many biomedical researchers have traditionally used animals in clinical trials. The matter generates debate regarding the ethical considerations on the part of animals. These unethical actions take place despite various campaigns and crusades against animal brutality. Apparently, it is not possible to fully eliminate the use of animals in clinical trials. It is appropriate for researchers to consider alternative measures that use non-human subjects during the scientific experiments. Alternatives to replace or reduce pain on animals during trials and experimentation will eliminate the unethical treatment of animals.
The usage of animals in research also has impacts on the nature of business. For instance, the continued usage of invasive animals affects the tourism sector and balance in the ecosystem. Some researchers tend to imagine that invasive animals are harmful to human health but fail to consider the commercial significance of the animals. The ethical treatment on invasive animals such as stray cats in Oahu, Hawaii and Danube Delta Horses from Romania is critical to safeguard the business interests and ecosystem. It is recognized, for instance, Delta Horses attracts visitors who want to witness the unique animals. Ethical treatment of animals is critical for commercial purposes besides adherence to research ethics.
In their 1959 publication, The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique , William Russell and Rex Burch stressed on the importance of reducing and replacing animal usage during clinical trials and experimentation. The two authors asserted that there exist non-animal alternatives that have better adherence to ethical requirements. Nonetheless, animal usage in research studies continues to increase hence raising considerable ethical and scientific concerns. It is instrumental to identify the cognitive and emotional capacity of animals to warrant expected results or harm exposure. The concerns highlighted have augmented the need to protect animal subjects during research activities through adherence to principles such as respect, justice, and beneficence (Walker and Nancy 2011).
Over time, various legislations have been established to protect animals in research. In the 19 th century, the British parliament passed the Cruelty to Animals Act. In 1966, the US formulated the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act with similar intentions to protect animals. Nonetheless, inconsistencies exist in both national and international laws. The US laws, for instance, exempts purpose-bred animals from such regulations hence jeopardizing over 90 percent of animals used in experimentation (Kuwahara 2011). While some people argue that pain and suffering is subjective in animals, further studies negate the notion, indicating that animals experience pain just like human beings. Animals portray coordinated response to pain and torture since they share genetic and psychological similarities with human beings.
One method by researchers to minimize the limitations of the animal models is to use genetically-modified animals. Using genetic engineering, researchers are developing better and quality animals by adding genes that are similar to human diseases. As such, the new animals will have features that are similar to those of human beings. The approach has already been used in mice and rats, leading to the production of genetically-modified animals ( Gluck and Mark 2008 ). Looking at such details presents a grave picture about the poor ethical practices during clinical trials and animal testing. At the same time, invasive animals help in the promotion of tourism in certain societies that have unique animals.
In conclusion, replacement alternatives will eliminate the conventional model hence reduce the risks and costs. It is believed that the move will open room for more research and innovation on better products to treat ailments. It is necessary for all stakeholders, both private and public, to generate better approaches that will result in new and less-controversial models in animal testing. Scientific evidence supports the fact that usage of animals in experimentation is limited and unnecessary to examine human diseases. Ethical treatment of invasive animals is critical to safeguard business interests such as tourism. Business ethnics in the society are essentially necessary. In regard to ethnical treatment on invasive species, one is well equipped with knowledge that invasive species in the environment are potential concerns of nature which are linked to enterprise development not only in some parts of Europe but widely. Therefore, it is necessary to always consider nature in every way and seek support from the local communities.
References
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