ABSTRACT
In the preceding two chapters I have presented various arguments demonstrating the conservation value of wildlife rehabilitation. There are good reasons for claiming that conservation practice ought to take into account the welfare of individual wild animals in its policy decision-making and implementation of action. However, I argued in Chapter Five, that conservation's raison d'etre – the safeguarding of nature in something like its current, cherished, form – is best achieved by protecting wildness (where such protection allows for the perpetuation of wildness). Immediately, then, there is a tension. Whilst I have considered, and rejected, some important criticisms of wildlife rehabilitation, it could be objected that I have sidestepped the most fundamental criticism of all. The practice of wildlife rehabilitation may be seen to compromise the very thing both rehabilitation and conservation seek to protect: the animals' wildness.
