“Better Off Dead?” Inside the Ethical Storm Surrounding Rescued Wild Animals
Based on reporting and an interview published in Psychology Today on November 30, 2025.
It’s a question most people flinch from — a “question from hell,” as Psychology Today describes it:
Are some rescued wild animals better off dead than living a life of permanent captivity?
For Dr. Jacqui Wilmshurst, a wildlife rescuer and scholar who recently spoke at the Annual Oxford Animal Ethics Summer School, the question is both personal and deeply complicated. Her work, detailed in an interview with Psychology Today’s Marc Bekoff, challenges long-held beliefs about animal disability, wildness, and what constitutes a life worth living.
A Life Spent Fighting for the Misunderstood
Wilmshurst’s passion for wildlife rescue began in childhood, when injured birds and small mammals regularly found their way to her family’s home. Those early experiences shaped her love for animals who are often dismissed, feared, or maligned — especially grey squirrels and corvids.
Being able to give them another chance, she told Psychology Today, still feels like a privilege.
The Ethical Questions Most Avoid
At the center of her work is a dilemma that many wildlife professionals approach with rigid rules. The standard guidance suggests that severely injured or disabled wild animals, particularly those who cannot be rereleased, are often candidates for euthanasia.
Wilmshurst sees the world very differently.
She argues, as Psychology Today reports, that life in sanctuary is not automatically a fate worse than death. Instead of relying on strict black-and-white rules, she looks closely at each individual animal:
their adaptability
their relationships
their resilience
their ability to experience quality of life
She points out that many disabled wild animals can — and do — adapt, forming interdependent relationships with their caregivers while still retaining their wild instincts.
The Problem Isn’t the Squirrels — It’s the Story We Tell About Them
Wilmshurst’s work also confronts a cultural history of shifting human values. As she explains to Psychology Today, grey squirrels were once adored “ornamental pets” in the late 1800s. Meanwhile, red squirrels were hunted as “tree devils.” Today, the roles have reversed: greys are widely culled, and reds are conservation icons.
This swing, she notes, shows how easily human judgment can transform a species from beloved to despised — and how that judgment shapes policy, ethics, and animal lives.
Caring for Those Others Reject
Much of Wilmshurst’s work focuses on disabled individuals of unpopular species—animals many people consider unworthy of rescue. This often places her at odds with official guidance that insists such animals are “better off dead.”
But for her, and for the small community of like-minded caregivers she works with, the animal’s intrinsic value is enough.
As she notes in Psychology Today, these animals value their own lives, regardless of human cultural narratives.
Bringing Research Into Rescue Work
Wilmshurst now blends scholarship with hands-on care. She uses multispecies autoethnography — a method that treats her lived experience with animals as valuable data — to examine ethical questions from the inside out.
This work connects her with emerging fields like compassionate conservation, indigenous knowledge systems, and philosophical ethology, pushing her to continuously refine how she understands human–animal relationships.
Hope for a More Compassionate Future
When asked whether she believes public understanding can evolve, Wilmshurst told Psychology Today she hopes people will become more willing to question their assumptions about wild animals — especially the belief that disability equals suffering, or that captivity automatically means loss of dignity.
She hopes people will recognize animals’ individuality, adaptability, and agency — and learn from them as fellow beings, not as moral puzzles to be solved.
