Of course, no pressure. I hope it's nothing permanent, and get well soon. 

This is exciting! The policy focus, specific levers, and concrete interventions laid out here are exactly what the space has been missing. This fills a real gap and I’m glad to see this direction being taken.

Hi Cameron, since you’ve invited questions, I'm just flagging that I’d still be interested in your thoughts on the questions I raised when replying to your comment on my post, whenever you have time. 

Thanks for laying those out. I’d agree that if even one were executed at scale it could be a major win for animals. However, WAI doesn’t appear to have a pathway for turning any of those into reality. The reason for this seems to be ‘we’re not certain enough yet’, but there isn’t a defined threshold for what ‘certain enough’ means.

Field-building has value, but it shouldn’t be the default answer indefinitely, especially when the projected timelines for impact seem to shift so dramatically (suggesting that the original thesis was off, albeit in a direction that’s good for animals). There also isn’t a clearly defined threshold for how much field building is sufficient. 

At some point, the movement ought to have clarity on when possible interventions graduate from speculative ideas to actionable programs.

Let’s see where things stand in a few years.

Hi Abraham, thanks for your comment. A quick clarifying question: when you say timelines have gone from 50+ years to a few years, what interventions are you referring to? 

Cameron mentioned examples such as bird-feeder design changes and rodent fertility control. Are those the interventions you had in mind when saying that the field is much closer to actionable work? 

It would be helpful to understand what fits the updated timeline, and how this aligns with Cameron's explanation. 

I can barely contain myself. :) 

Thanks for laying these out. I have to be honest: I don’t think these examples justify the current scale of investment.

A backyard bird-feeder optimisation study isn’t remotely proportional to the millions deployed so far, nor to the moral stakes that originally motivated WAI’s existence. 

The rodent fertility control pathway sounds more promising, but again: a best-case 4–7 year pathway if funding materialises, if the competition succeeds, and if a viable product emerges. 

If these are the strongest examples of expected real-world impact this decade, then that reinforces my original concern: the current spend-to-impact ratio looks extremely low, and the strategic timeline still feels unanchored.

I explicitly acknowledged your stated strategy and the need for foundational research. My question is when you expect that strategy to translate into real-world impact.

To move this forward, let’s try to crystallise what you’ve said:

1. What exactly counts as a self-sustaining academic field for wild animal welfare?

Is that defined by number of labs? Funding sources? Course offerings? Publication volume? ‘Self-sustaining’ risks becoming an unending horizon.

2. What does ‘the long run’ mean in practice?

A strategy without a time-bound target is very difficult to evaluate. Is the honest answer simply ‘as long as it takes’? As long as people are willing to fund it?

3. How much funding do you estimate is required to reach this self-sustaining point?

If the answer is ‘we don’t know’, that’s fine - but then we need some proxy indicators or budget ranges that would count as reasonable expectations.

Is the reality that donors are effectively funding an open-ended research project with no agreed stopping rule? Your answers make it hard not to reach that conclusion.

I'm not trying to exhaust you with relentless questions. I'm trying to separate the wheat from the chaff in what you've said. Long replies run the risk of diverting away from the central thrust of discussion. 

Hi Cameron, thank you for engaging in the spirit in which my post is intended. You could've just ghosted it and hoped nobody noticed. Really, I appreciate your time here.