Tristan Katz
As a university student, Tristan stumbled across a talk by Peter Singer that led him to the world of effective altruism.
He was immediately taken by the concepts, but lacking a local EA group, he let these ideas brew in the back of his mind.
After graduating, Tristan moved to Wellington and came across a local meetup group that had just started. He enthusiastically helped to kick-start the community, organising weekly discussions and other events. The community gave Tristan the necessary support to consider new ways to do good. “The people that became regulars really helped me make the move to become vegan and to consider a totally different career… The EA NZ retreats were also very inspiring.”
Tristan briefly interned at Animal Ethics, collating literature about wild animal suffering. However, high-impact roles were hard to find, so he soon moved into a “fairly ordinary” job at the Ministry of Health. While many would consider this a good career in itself, Tristan felt that he was largely replaceable, and could have more impact elsewhere.
After many discussions about impactful careers with the EA NZ community, he realised that he had a good personal fit for philosophy, and that wild animal ethics was an area where further philosophising could still be of value.
“ The EA NZ community was absolutely pivotal for me. ”
As a result, Tristan began applying for PhD positions. He is now a doctoral student at Universitè de Fribourg in Switzerland, where his research focuses on the ethics of wildlife management. He is particularly interested in how the suffering of wild animals should be considered by those managing wild populations, and what forms of management they could pursue to reduce the suffering of wild animals.
With his studies soon drawing to a close, Tristan is beginning to consider his next steps. While he’s unsure of exactly where he’ll end up, he plans to apply for EA-aligned jobs in NGOs or academia, and is keen to stay focused on animal welfare. He admits that he is “strongly considering moving home”- if he can find some way to do high-impact work at the same time.
More on wild animal welfare
📖 Read: the Wild Animal Suffering website is beautiful, accessible introduction to the topic
🖥️ Watch: YouTuber Humane Hancock on how to solve wild animal suffering
🔈 Listen: Rob Wiblin interviews Persis Eskander on wild animal welfare and what, if anything, to do about it
💸 Donate: the Wild Animal Initiative is one of the few nonprofits focused on this neglected cause-area
