Uncovering the Secret Lives of Lesser-known Carnivores in Bangladesh

This is an interesting article from the environmental magazine "the relevator" on the experiences of a researcher in Bangladesh who has been researching the conservation of the countries smaller carnivores.

The article addresses some of the institutional and cultural challenges that come from researching smaller carnivores and why these desperately need to be addressed by the academic / scientific world.

Enjoy

Uncovering the Secret Lives of Lesser-known Carnivores in Bangladesh • The Revelator

 

Zoos should encourage more interest in smaller carnivores..

 

I most definitely agree but I can kind of understand the unwillingness by zoos though it irritates me.

However, I can't understand nor respect the academic and / or conservationist lack of interest and respect for the research and conservation of small carnivores which the author of the article describes, that is just pathetic.

 

I wonder why some zoos don't seem to be bothered about interesting people in lesser-known animals. It is not hard to find interesting information via the internet.

 

I think its is challenging to get people interested but then I think to some extent it is a bigotry of low expectation from zoos to the visitors.

Certainly I think much more can be done by zoos to generate interest in these species.

 

I wonder if part of the problem lies in the power of marketing departments, which make assumptions about which animals are 'interesting' and may have little knowledge or interest in some species.

 

I think that the problem is almost certainly partly down to marketing departments, I totally agree with you.

 

I think what also plays a role is that many small and medium carnivore species, to an extent aside from more charismatic species like meerkats and some mongoose species, raccoons and coatis, are crepuscular or nocturnal and/or somewhat cryptic, which might make it difficult for zoos to present these animals in a way that will truly interests people who are not like us zoo and animal enthusiasts, which might lead to choices moving away from such species. But I do agree that zoos could and should do more to draw interest towards and challenge visitors more in seeing some of the less charismatic and/or visible species. I won't be easy, but it should be tried.

I also think the online outreach and education stuff that zoos have being doing since Covid, and will probably continue to do to an extent,could be an interesting way to draw more interests towards less charismatic species.

And some smaller (city) zoos will probably have to focus on small and medium carnivores in the future for animal welfare reasons, so they should definitely be looking into this.

 

Yes, I agree that the nocturnality / crepuscularity and cryptic behaviour probably play a role in zoos not keeping many small carnivores though as you say there are plenty of charismatic small carnivores which are commonly kept like coati, meerkat, banded mongoose, racoon and kinkajou.

I definitely welcome smaller city zoos beginning to focus more on small to medium sized carnivores and like you I also personally believe that this is both inevitable and ultimately a very positive development.

The article isn't really about zoos though but about the bias in research that exists towards large carnivores like tigers and leopards within conservation biology and away from small carnivores which is apparently vocally discouraged.

In my opinion this lack of will and interest to research into the conservation of small carnivores (but could easily apply to so many other taxa and species) and the actual hostility shown towards those who do which is described by the author of the piece is a disgusting development and says it all about the myopic and largely out of touch cult that is academia.