One of the greatest privileges of being a primatologist is spending time in remote locations with monkeys and apes, living close to these animals in their habitat and experiencing their daily lives. As a 21st century person, my immediate urge is to take photos of these encounters and share them on social media.
Social media can help scientists raise awareness of the species we study, promote their conservation, and obtain jobs and research funding. However, sharing images of wild animals online can also contribute to illegal animal trafficking and harmful interactions between humans and animals. For endangered species, this attention could further endanger them.
My research seeks to find ways that scientists and conservationists can harness the power of social media while avoiding its pitfalls. My colleague, ecologist and science communicator Cathryn Freund, and I think we have some answers. In our opinion, wildlife professionals should never include themselves in photos with animals. We also believe that showing young animals and animals interacting with humans causes viewers to think about these creatures in a way that is counterproductive to conservation.
Show and tell?
Many conservation biologists are thinking hard about the role that social media can and should play in their work. For example, the Human-Primate Interactions Division of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature has issued guidelines for using images of wild primates and for organizing primate-watching tours.
These guidelines recommend that when scientists show photos of themselves with a wild primate, the caption should state that the person in the image is a trained researcher or conservationist. However, there is not much data assessing whether this approach is effective.
We wanted to test whether people actually read these captions and whether informative captions helped curb viewers’ desire to have similar experiences or to own the animal as a pet.
In a study published in 2023, my colleagues and I created two mock Instagram posts – one shows a human near a wild gorilla, the other focuses on a gloved human hand holding a slender lorikeet – one small lemur-like primate native to Southeast Asia. Half of these photos had simple captions like “Me with a mountain gorilla” or “Me with my research subject”; the other half contained more detailed captions that also stated: “All animals under observation” (gorilla) or “safely and humanely captured and handled (loris) for research with proper permits and training.”
We showed over 3,000 adults one of these fake Instagram posts and asked them to complete a survey. The results shocked us.
Viewers who saw the Instagram posts with the more detailed caption recognized that the photo depicted research. But regardless of the caption, more than half of viewers agreed or strongly agreed that they would like to have a similar experience with the lorikeet or the gorilla.
More than half of viewers agreed or strongly agreed that they would like to have these animals as pets and that the animals would make good pets. Presumably the participants knew nothing about the animals’ lifestyle habits, behavior or survival needs, or whether any of these species are even suitable for keeping as pets.
Why media impact matters
While these responses may sound merely sentimental or naive, research shows that media – especially social media – contributes to harmful human encounters with wildlife and the exotic pet trade.
For example, the Harry Potter films and books, in which owls were used as magical creatures by wizards, led to a sharp increase in the illegal owl trade in Indonesia. Owls were once known collectively in Indonesia as ‘Burung Hantu’ or ‘ghost bird’, but now they are commonly referred to as ‘Burung Harry Potter’ in the country’s bird markets.
Research shows that images of people holding lorises encourage the illegal capture and sale of lorises and other primates. Owners then post more videos showing them handling the animals in inappropriate ways, such as tickling the lorikeet, causing it to raise its arms. Viewers see this behavior as cute, but in fact the animals do this to activate poisonous glands in their upper arms and deliver poison to their mouths in preparation to defend themselves.
From previous research, we found that when orangutan rescue and rehabilitation centers featured baby orangutans and people who interact with orangutans in YouTube videos, these posts received more views than videos of adult orangutans or orangutans. -utans that do not interact with humans. However, people who watched videos showing young orangutans, or people who interacted with the animals, posted comments that were less positive for orangutan conservation. They were also more likely to say they wanted to have orangutans as pets or interact with them.
Many people who seek out wildlife encounters are unaware of the damage these experiences cause. Animals can transmit diseases to humans, but it also works the other way: humans can transmit potentially fatal diseases to wild animals, including measles, herpes viruses and influenza viruses.
When humans move through an animal’s habitat—or worse, handle or chase the animal—they trigger stress responses and change the animal’s behavior. Animals may avoid feeding areas or spend time and energy fleeing rather than foraging.
Owning wild animals as pets is even more problematic. I have worked with several rescue and rehabilitation centers that have taken in orangutans that were previously kept as pets or tourist attractions. These animals are usually in very poor health and must be taught how to socialize, move through trees and find their own food, as they are not allowed to exhibit these natural behaviors.
The last thing any responsible conservation biologist who studies endangered species wants to do is encourage this kind of human-nature contact.
Comment instead of sharing
Many well-meaning researchers and conservationists, along with the public, have posted images of themselves around wildlife on social media. I did it too, before I understood the consequences.
Our findings indicate that caption information is not enough to deter people from seeking out animal encounters. The way we see it, the answer is that researchers need to stop taking and sharing these photos with the general public.
When scientists post, we recommend selecting images that show only wild animals, in as natural a context as possible, or only people in the field – and not both together. Researchers, conservationists and the public can go back into their social media history and delete or crop images that show human-animal interactions.
Scientists can also contact people who post images of people interacting with wildlife, explain why the images may be harmful, and suggest they be removed. Leading by example and sharing this information are simple actions that can save animal lives.
Cathryn Freund, director of science communications at the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science in Miami, contributed to this article.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization providing facts and analysis to help you understand our complex world.
It was written by: Andrea l. DiGiorgio, Princeton University.
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Andrea l. DiGiorgio has received funding from the National Science Foundation and Princeton University. She is a participating member of the IUCN SSC Primate Specialist Group Section on Human-Primate Interactions.