PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Conserv. Sci.
Sec. Human-Wildlife Interactions
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcosc.2025.1676699
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Impact of Digital Technology on the Relationships between People and WildlifeView all 3 articles
An expanded role for animal privacy and relational ethics in wildlife digital technology research
Provisionally accepted
- University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, United States
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There is a growing body of research exploring the effects of digital technology (DT) on wildlife. In this perspective, we map a line of inquiry that links a growing body of work describing the effects of DT on wildlife, recent work on animal privacy, and contemporary work in animal normative moral theory (specifically relational ethics). We have three aims. Our first is to articulate conceptual and moral issues concerning animal privacy and relationality, issues often neglected or left implicit in existing guidance on using DT to manage wildlife information sharing. Our second is to identify areas needing further research. Our third is to urge researchers and practitioners involved in wildlife DT to explicitly address these issues so as to better advance our understanding of human ethical obligations to animals, species, ecosystems, and other humans in the context of DT.
Keywords: privacy1, information ethics2, animal ethics3, relational ethics4, digital technology5, wildlife6, human-wildlife interaction7
Received: 30 Jul 2025; Accepted: 04 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Kaehrle, Rubel and Streiffer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Martin Kaehrle, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, United States
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