Pantheraman
Well-Known Member
How Favoritism Affects Wildlife Conservation
I was browsing on the internet not too long ago when I stumbled upon an article link to the news article "A megafauna bias in India’s carnivore research is hampering the country’s conservations efforts". (A megafauna bias in India’s carnivore research is hampering the country’s conservations efforts)
Basically, the whole gist is that in India conservationists focus so much on charismatic carnivores (tigers, leopards, snow leopards, and Asiatic lions) that little attention is paid to less charismatic species like the striped hyena and Indian Wolf. And it got me thinking about the situation that non-charismatic endangered species are in when it comes to conservation attention and funding. Needless to say, there are a couple of ways our species' preferences affect conservation efforts.
The first and more obvious way is how people fund conservation efforts. When laymen donate to conservation NGOs, they're more likely to donate to an organization that tries conserving something like tigers or elephants than they are say, pangolins and dholes. This is in part, due to people liking these species more than the latter two. Preference for one species over another though is perfectly fine obviously. That's simply a part of human nature and naturally, we all have our favorite animals. Mine for example is the tiger. But this obviously isn't something that would prevent people from donating to dhole conservation efforts for example. The real problem is that most people aren't even aware that species like the dhole, pangolin, anoa, tamaraw, colugo, etc even exist, and obviously nobody, and I mean nobody is going to donate for an animal they don't know even exists. And of course, the reason most people are unaware of their existence to begin with is a lack of education about the species from conservationists.
One of the roles of conservationists is to teach people about animals and in turn get people hyped up about endangered species so the people are more likely to donate to conservation NGOs. And there simply aren't enough efforts like these from conservationists for non-charismatic endangered species to get people to donate to the causes. Granted, efforts from conservationists are growing to boost conservation funding for these species by making the non-charismatic charismatic.
That being said, even with increasing funds for their conservation, the charismatic species will still have more money going towards them and that'll always be the case. Again, having preferences is a part of human nature and as the saying goes, a leopard cannot change its spots. And conservationists working to save non-charismatic wildlife will have to accept this. Especially since one could argue that some charismatic animals like lions are childhood heroes.
The other way favoritism affects conservation involves the management of invasive species. With some species like the Burmese Python, people are very insistent on eliminating them from the Everglades. Meanwhile, many people are very resistant to the idea of doing the same thing to the brumbies of Kosciusko National Park in Australia. Because some invasive species are loved so much, it becomes nearly impossible to do what's actually needed: culling programs to eradicate the invasive species and protect the ecosystems. Obviously part of this comes from the fact that when you love something, you become protective of it. The other part likely comes from the kinds of animals involved. After all, people are more likely to tolerate horses than they are snakes.
Anyway, this is something I wanted to talk about for a while now. What are all of your thoughts on this?