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July 14, 2005

Saving Poster-Friendly Species: Perhaps More Strategic Than We Think

It's a fact that making the public aware of threatened and endangered species is very much a PR problem. Conservation is not just about responsible behaviors like careful development and recycling and such, it also requires political and economic support for recovery programs and scientific research.

The first really successful conservation efforts to gain broad respect in the 1980's were focused on intelligent marine life - especially whales. Foundations like Save The Whales educated the public and provided "adoption" programs (preying on our pet-craziness) to help funnel financial support to the animals. Whales were an excellent choice for a poster-species: they're regarded as intelligent, not scary but cute, and in the United States, very few people can argue that protecting them will result any significant negative impact financially or otherwise. Soon other conservation institutions followed suit and raised awareness of other marine mammals. You had your dolphin-safe tuna, among other things.

Land mammals, especially predators like wolves and bears, may be photogenic, but they come hand in hand with some challenges to conservationalists. Farmers need to protect their herds and crops, hunters don't want to forego the opportunity of the "bag of a lifetime", and developers don't want to rearrange their plans at great expense just to avoid the potential of habitat destruction. Still, the efforts to protect animals like the Gray Wolf and the Grizzly Bear have been somewhat successful in raising public awareness and promoting scientific research of these animals. You'll notice that on the front of each of their webpages, they have cute pictures of cuddly baby animals. Can we blame these good causes for playing any cards they can?

If you think about it, every animal needs some form of advocacy nowadays. By educating the public, especially our children, about nature, we are fostering the next generation of scientists. Most young adults considering the marine biology major seem to be mostly interested in marine mammals - not fish, invertebrates, or ocean ecosystems. Admittedly, after the initial weeding-out process that inevitably takes place on freshmen, those still studying in the major do eventually end up with a variety of specialties. Similarly, most bio majors don't get into the field to study some obscure form of fungus or some little-known variety of catfish that exists only in a river in Thailand.

All this leads one to question if conservation movements have become addicted to the money that can be raised with the cute poster-genic mammals, neglecting all the plants and obscure animal species - especially the cold-blooded ones. Campaigns like FrogWatch USA tend to result in raised eyebrows and some mumblings about "those weird herp-lovers", like only the class nerd would admit to interest in that sphere. That said, I guess you could say that conservation-oriented entertainers like the crocodile hunting family, the Irwins, have helped educate the masses about snakes and lizards, although most people still think Steve Irwin is a nutcase, albeit an amusing one.

Well, now studies are showing that focusing on the charismatic species - which are generally predator mammals at the top of the food chain - to attract support which generally results in funding for those specific species is not altogether a bad thing, ecologically speaking.

A new study shows that top predators are consistently associated with higher biodiversity than species lower down the food chain.

...

The study, which will be reported tomorrow in the journal Nature, suggests that conservationists are justified—on ecological grounds—to use top predators to attract financial and public support.

More at: Save "Poster Species" First, Conservation Study Says

That said, when was the last time you saw a campaign to protect a plant variety? It seems another problem altogether.

Posted by sorsha at July 14, 2005 8:01 AM