Animal property rights

Animal property rights theory is an approach to territorial rights in which wild animals are conceived of as owners of the natural spaces they inhabit and use. Its most important proponent is the Australian philosopher John Hadley (2005, 2015, 2017), while other defenders include the philosopher Josh Milburn (2017), the political theorist Steve Cooke (2017), and the lawyer Karen Bradshaw (2018). Though this suggests that the theory is a new approach to thinking about human-animal relationships and preservation of natural spaces, Hadley (2015, 8, 76) identifies the seed of animal property rights theory in influential works of 20th century animal ethics, such as the case for animal rights from Tom Regan (1984). That said, one of the only explicit early references comes from James Rachels (1989, 125), for whom animals would be recognised as owners on some theories of property. Rachels, however, mentions ownership of objects, rather than spaces.