ABSTRACT
The main thrust of my argument throughout the book has been that conservation requires a new direction. It requires a different emphasis; one, primarily, that acknowledges the conservation value of the individual animal. I have arrived at this position in part by criticising some of the existing conservation mores, and in part by demonstrating that concern for the individual both precedes and feeds into the kind of concern that is needed for conservation action. This latter perspective has been supported by an examination of the practice of wildlife rehabilitation. This is a practice that might by seen to epitomise concern for individual welfare, and one that is traditionally regarded as having little or no relevance to conservation.
