
Animal movies promote awareness, not harm, say researchers - EndXA
http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2019-08-14-%E2%80%9C-nemo-effect%E2%80%9D-untrue-animal-movies-promote-awareness-not-harm-say-researchers
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im3w1l
Yet in the past, Rascal the Racoon led to a big raccoon problem in Japan. It
can clearly happen, even if it does not always.

[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/childrens-book-
beh...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/childrens-book-behind-
japans-raccoon-problem-180954577/)

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EndXA
The original study can be found here:
[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13280-019-01233-7](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13280-019-01233-7)

Abstract:

> Representations of wildlife in television and films have long been
> hypothesized to shape human-wildlife interactions. A recent example is
> Pixar’s film Finding Dory, which featured a blue tang fish (Paracanthurus
> hepatus) as the main character and was widely reported in the popular press
> to have increased the number of such fish in the pet trade. We use Bayesian
> posterior predictive counterfactual models to evaluate the movie’s effect on
> three metrics of societal behaviour. Although there was an increase in
> global online searches for the blue tang 2–3 weeks after the movie, we find
> no substantial evidence for an increase in imports of blue tang fish into
> the US, or in number of visitors to US aquaria compared to counterfactual
> expectations. It is vital that an evidence-based discourse is used when
> communicating potential impacts of popular culture on human-wildlife
> relationships to avoid loss of credibility and misdirection of conservation
> resources.

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
There may not be a “Nemo effect” but it did seem like there was a “Dalmatian
effect” in the past.

[https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/14/us/after-movies-
unwanted-...](https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/14/us/after-movies-unwanted-
dalmatians.html)

It seems like after the releases and re-releases of the 101 Dalmatian movies,
the demand for Dalmatians as pets went up. However, a lot of them were later
abandoned to shelters because they were more work than people anticipated.

EDIT:

Here is an archive link to the nytimes article
[http://archive.is/4Cp6W](http://archive.is/4Cp6W)

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droithomme
Dalmatians are super high energy dogs and need a huge amount of attention or
they will ransack your house to dissipate their nervous energy. Great
firehouse dogs where you have a bunch of big guys sitting around 24/7 and want
a dog to play with that also enjoys excitement on the level of going to fires.

They are absolutely not for the casual dog owner that leaves their dog alone
in an empty home while the family works and attends school. Never do this.

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hkchad
Nobody is getting a blue tang/hippo on a whim, first they require a salt water
tank, second they are not a cheap fish, third they need a pretty well
established tank, any decent dealer will inform the customer of this. Clowns
on the other hand can damn near survive in any water.

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dmurray
A priori, the most believable thesis to me would be that _Finding Dory_
increased both interest in keeping blue tang fish as pets and generic internet
searches about them.

It's also misleading to conflate keeping members of a species as pets with
damaging the wild population. This is something that is obviously related in
some cases (e.g. giant pandas) and obviously unrelated in others (e.g dogs). I
don't know much about the ecosystem in which blue tang live, but I'd expect
most aquarium fish to be more like dogs than pandas in this comparison.

~~~
wisty
Pet clownfish (like most marine species) are mostly wild caught -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphiprioninae#In_the_aquarium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphiprioninae#In_the_aquarium)

I believe Clownfish and blue tangs are all Least Concern. There is some
concern that they might be threatened by overfishing as pets, but I'd say a
much more realistic threat is habitat destruction (due to coral bleaching and
pollution degrading the ability of damaged reefs to bounce back). Fish takes
can be essentially embassies for the reef, and can be used to educate people
on how important protecting the habitat is.

Hell, even for pandas, their status as zoo animals (and a national symbol)
encourages China to protect their wild habitat (it's not like China doesn't
have demand for more land).

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Zenst
Kinda depends upon the film, Bambi sure pulled in much empathy for deers, yet
Jaws didn't exactly make sharks all cuddly for so many.

~~~
jcims
And that's where the 'harm' can come from. Wildlife conservation frequently
requires effective management of the population. Bambi was incredibly
destructive to the social acceptance of hunting and other tools for culling of
wildlife.

~~~
Zenst
Very true, deers in some area's do require population control due to the
impending impact they would have upon an area. This you see play out in
contained parks/area (ie - cut off) like for example Richmond Park in Surrey
which closes twice a year for such culling, of which has David Attenborough as
a patron. They do cover the issue here:- [https://www.frp.org.uk/deer-cull-
royal-parks-advice/](https://www.frp.org.uk/deer-cull-royal-parks-advice/)

It is a balance and yes, the let's save everything mentality can play out
detrimentality in society and that alas gets down to lack of knowledge upon
the matter - always, which we see play out on both sides of the political
spectrum.

Though another one still up in the air are Foxes, historically they used to do
fox hunts to control the population - which I'd say is the other side of the
fence as whilst the motives originally where good (farmers and foxes do not
mix if large populations of foxes), the approach of the culling is a inhumane,
barbaric and ritualised sport. So you end up with fox hunting banned, but
without any other forms of control in place you end up with, and we have with
foxes spreading into towns and see an increase in children and pets attacked,
which has happened. But the hey they are cute patrols will overlook that
aspect. It is a fine balance, one in which as a species we kinda hypocrite
impose.

After all, I'm sure many animals if they could speak would say that humans
need population management due to the environmental impact they have. Which in
many aspects, opens up a whole new level of debate that nobody really wants to
discuss. Though nobody looks at shark attacks upon people as environmental
conservation oddly enough.

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ComputerGuru
I don’t know about _Dory_ and _Nemo_ , given the incredible range and quantity
of distractors in this day and age (which of the dozen movies that came out
this week will you take direction from today?), but I know in the past the
_Lassie_ problem was both real and long-lived (from anecdotal discussions with
animal welfare experts).

But that doesn’t take away from the point of this research and I don’t
disagree with it. Movies like _Free Willy_ , _Rio_ , _Balto_ , _Fly Away Home_
, and so many others have definitely worked miracles for turning apathetic (or
rather, directionless) children into compassionate adults that care about the
plight of the animals we share this world with.

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k_sze
Maybe it’s just me, but I imagine that _if_ I want _anything_ at all after
watching “Finding Dory” or “Finding Nemo”, it would not be a real fish, but a
stuffed Dory or Nemo.

