I'm hitting the easy topics right now. First cheetahs, now cute animals. So, being in a cons. bio. (conservation biology) lab means I meet/go to lab meetings with conservation biology graduate students and the lab director (let's call him M). It's funny how, years of schooling and being in the research field alters the opinions of people. We read papers every week and discuss them (from the staple conservation biology papers to new, possibly bad, papers) and a sore topic for most of them is "charismatic megafauna". Maybe 'sore' is the wrong word, but there is definitely some small dislike/annoyance toward how much attention the cuddle pandas (a main example of 'charismatic megafauna'), or cute baby tigers, etc etc. Because, they (and most conservation biologists) don't research and attempt to protect the popular creatures. Yes, most of these cute animals are top priority and yes many people (everyday) are fighting to keep them from going extinct, but it is slightly unfair how the big shots outshine the smaller or just less known species. Our lab (since there aren't many, or any, megafauna to research in my state) focuses on turtles and birds and frogs, which are all really awesome and adorable to me but still. Basically, the point of that rambling session was to say, cute endangered animals get a ton of attention while equally as important (if not sometimes more important) species get less attention. For example, certain species of grass are endangered/threatened. Who cares? In reality, few people. But we should care because plants keep our waters clean, provide us with oxygen, provide buffers from storms, store potentially dangerous naturally occurring chemicals and more. So, pay attention to the little guys too! but for right now I'm going to find really adorable endangered species pictures.
I hope you enjoyed this nature chat.
Stay tuned for more,
K
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