Abstract
Traditional conservation campaigns often rely on “marquee” animals to which humans are viscerally attracted for psychological reasons. These campaigns eventually create donor fatigue through repetition—and are unable to raise awareness and funding for equally important but less anthropomorphically attractive species. Conservation advocates can overcome these shortcomings by relying on psychologically compelling alternatives to anthropomorphic attraction: sophistication of perception, humor, and the human ability to redefine our environment.
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- 1.
D. Adam and C. Cole, “Meerkats, Chimps and Pandas: The Cute and the Furry Attract Scientists’ Attention and Conservation Funding,” The Guardian, May 22, 2010.
- 2.
E. Bowen-Jones and A. Entwistle, “Identifying Appropriate Flagship Species: The Importance of Culture and Local Contexts,” Oryx 36, no. 02 (2002): 189–195.
- 3.
“Smartphones Merge into Homogeneous Mass as ‘Flagship Fatigue’ Bites,” The Register, January 30, 2015.
- 4.
J. T. Cacioppo and R. C. Petty, “Effects of Message Repetition on Argument Processing, Recall, and Persuasion,” Basic and Applied Social Psychology 10, no. 1 (1989): 3–12.
- 5.
M. J. Estren, “The Neoteny Barrier: Seeking Respect for the Non-Cute,” Journal of Animal Ethics 2, no. 1 (2012): 6–11.
- 6.
D. Hewitt, “The Earth Times Asks: Are Conservation Groups Right to Prioritize ‘Iconic’ Species?” Earth Times, May 21, 2012.
- 7.
Ibid.
- 8.
P. A. Fleming and P. W. Bateman, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Which Australian Terrestrial Mammal Species Attract Most Research?” Mammal Review, March 6, 2016.
- 9.
Ibid.
- 10.
M. J. Trimble and R. J. Van Aarde, “Species Inequality in Scientific Study,” Conservation Biology 24, no. 3 (2010): 886–890.
- 11.
Ibid.
- 12.
N. Angier, “A Masterpiece of Nature? Yuck!” The New York Times, August 10, 2010: D1.
- 13.
Ibid.
- 14.
A. Kanagavel, R. Raghavan, and D. Verissimo, “Beyond the ‘General Public’: Implications of Audience Characteristics for Promoting Species Conservation in the Western Ghats Hotspot, India,” Ambio: A Journal of the Human Environment 43, no. 2 (2014): 138–148.
- 15.
Ibid.
- 16.
S. Freud, “Civilization and Its Discontents”, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, trans. J. Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1961), vol. 21, 64–145. Freud’s ideas are largely borrowed from Immanuel Kant’s in The Critique of Judgment (1790).
- 17.
S. Batt, “Human Attitudes Toward Animals in Relation to Species Similarity to Humans: A Multivariate Approach,” Bioscience Horizons, April 21, 2009, doi: 10.1093/biohorizons/hzp021.
- 18.
J. Schlegel and R. Rupf, “Attitudes Towards Potential Animal Flagship Species in Nature Conservation: A Survey Among Students of Different Educational Institutions,” Journal for Nature Conservation18, no. 4 (2010): 278–290.
- 19.
Ibid.
- 20.
Angier, “A Masterpiece of Nature? Yuck!”.
- 21.
C. Dell’Amore, “20,000 Species Are Near Extinction: Is It Time to Rethink How We Decide Which to Save?” National Geographic, December 16, 2013.
- 22.
Ibid.
- 23.
Ibid.
- 24.
See, for example, http://www.tica.org/find-a-breeder/item/285-sphynx-introduction and http://sphynxlair.com/community/.
- 25.
M. Marshall, “Eight Ugly Animals We Should Save Anyway,” BBC Earth, October 17, 2014.
- 26.
Ibid.
- 27.
- 28.
Ibid.
- 29.
Ibid.
- 30.
S. Watt, The Ugly Animals: We can’t All Be Pandas (Stroud, UK: The History Press, 2014).
- 31.
F. Rutherford, “9 ‘Ugly’ Animals Going Extinct That Need Love Too,” BuzzFeed, September 16, 2015, www.buzzfeed.com/fionarutherford/all-you-need-is-love#.jw5dagLdb.
- 32.
Ibid.
- 33.
“Slip and Slide: Blue-grey Taildropper Slug,” Sierra Club BC [British Columbia], http://sierraclub.bc.ca/slip-and-slide-blue-grey-taildropper-slug/.
- 34.
- 35.
Ibid.
- 36.
- 37.
B. Nelson, “13 of the Ugliest Animals on the Planet,” Mother Nature Network, February 16, 2016, http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/photos/13-of-the-ugliest-animals-on-the-planet/blobfish#top-desktop.
- 38.
“Save the Blobfish! 5 Ugly Endangered Animals That Need Our Love,” Discover Magazine, September 16, 2013.
- 39.
V. Gill, “Are these Animals too ‘Ugly’ to be Saved?” BBC News Magazine, November 20, 2012.
- 40.
Ibid.
- 41.
Ibid.
- 42.
Ibid.
- 43.
“Indian River Lagoon Species Inventory,” Smithsonian Marine Station at Fort Pierce, http://www.sms.si.edu/irlspec/Seagrass_Habitat.htm. See also D. Dudgeon et al., “Freshwater Biodiversity: Importance, Threats, Status and Conservation Challenges,” Biological Reviews, 81, no. 02 (2006): 163–182, doi: 10.1017/S1464793105006950.
- 44.
Gill, “Are these Animals too ‘Ugly’ to be Saved?”.
- 45.
C. Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (London: John Murray, 1872).
- 46.
M. Wenner, “Smile! It Could Make You Happier,” Scientific American, September 1, 2009.
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Estren, M.J. (2018). The Ethics of Preservation: Where Psychology and Conservation Collide. In: Linzey, A., Linzey, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Practical Animal Ethics. The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-36671-9_28
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