Physical Attractiveness of an Animal Species as a Decision Factor for its Preservation

Economic Valuation of Biodiversity Conservation: the Meaning of Numbers

“…People's affective responses toward species are influenced by anthropomorphic (Kellert & Berry 1980;Eddy et al 1993;Plous 1993) and anthropocentric variables (Serpell 1986;Herzog & Burghardt 1988). On one hand, species that are phylogenetically close and physically similar to humans are likely to attract more conservation support than dissimilar species (Gunnthorsdottir 2001;White et al 2001;Martín-López et al 2007). On the other hand, species perceived as useful or beneficial to humans are regarded more positively than those perceived as useless or detrimental (DeKay & McClelland 1996;Martín-López et al 2007).…”

“…The scientific literature indicates that conservation support is positively related to the perceived attractiveness of nonhuman species, which usually is an extension of human similarity (i.e., the similarity principle) (Plous 1993;Gunnthorsdottir 2001). Perceived similarity between humans and nonhuman species is related to the phylogenetic level (Eddy et al 1993) and to physical characteristics such as length, weight, and eye size (Herzog & Burghardt 1988).…”

Knowledge about a species’ conservation status and funding for its preservation: Analysis

“…Information about the conservation status of a species influences the willingness of the public to donate funds or support changes in allocation of funds for its preservation, e.g., public funds (Samples et al, 1986;DeKay and McClelland, 1996;Tkac, 1998;Gunnthorsdottir, 2001). Other things constant, the more endangered members of the public believe a species to be (if it is a threatened species), the larger is the financial sum that members of the public are willing to commit for its conservation.…”

Connecting the social and the ecological in the focal species concept: case study of White Stork

“…Flagship species may be selected based on their conservation status (Rodrigues et al 2006), population size, ecological importance (Home et al 2009), although -probably most often -what counts is their appearance, charisma and utility (Walpole and Leader-Williams 2002;Serpell 2004;Martín-López et al 2008;Veríssimo et al 2009;Ullmann and Stachowitsch 2015). Appearance is mostly related to large body size, physical attractiveness and likeability which involve some kind of similarity to humans (Gunnthorsdottir 2001;Tisdell et al 2006) or relatively babyish looks which trigger affection in adult humans (Gould 1980). Charisma may be related to appearance (aesthetic and corporeal charisma) or it may relate to broader detectability and distinctiveness of species (Lorimer 2007).…”