Is it ethical to the practice of Selective Breeding?

[sockyee]

In the aquarium pets industry, it is very common to see breeders applying the practice of selective breeding to come with a species with desired characteristic. It is always of my view that doing this may actually cause more harm and the underlying results in the long run is that we could actually produce a species that will have all the negative traits combined together. I mean how would we know that the traits would be the one that could ensure their survival in the wild?

 

Take for example fish with strong and bright colors like the swordtails. In the wild the same species actually have dull grey colors (Xiphophorus helleri) and because of that they were able to survive from predators. Looking the other way round, fish which are actually bred in aquariums with desired colors were sometimes released back into the wild and this will void the fish the chance to survive on their own. That’s why it is always my argument that even this applies to dogs and cats whereby certain characteristic were actually selected and determined by us. They don't have the natural traits that will enable them to survive on their own.

 

What's your point of view regarding this?

[iNow]

I'm okay with it. When you break it down, ALL breeding is selective. Across animal-based life forms, mates must choose their partner. In the circumstances you describe, we're just choosing for them. This has allowed us to have wonderful meats, and chickens with gigantic breasts... dogs which can help save lives and organisms which improve health, for example.

 

Selective breeding is perfectly ethical. I think it's what you ultimately decide to do with the bred animals themselves which is an area on which we should focus and heavily question.

[Mokele]

It depends how it's done. There's nothing wrong with selective breeding per se, but a lot of the time, it's done poorly. Using too few animals, breeding too intensively without out-crossing, inbreeding for desired or recessive traits like albinism, all can compromise the genetic health of the animals, which, IMHO, makes it unethical, since we're harming animals for purely cosmetic reasons.

 

Doing it well is possible, especially if you're a big breeder who can afford to keep and work with hundreds of animals over many generations, and who knows enough about genetics to avoid pitfalls like inbreeding and bottlenecks. I don't know enough about fish breeding to know how representative of the real situation that is, but I know in reptile breeding, it's far from true, resulting in numerous genetic defects in lines bred for particular traits like pattern variations.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I know a lot of dog breeds have developed all sorts of weird genetic disorders due to inbreeding for specific traits. I, however, would be happy with a mutt with no major disorders.