Effects of captions on viewers’ perceptions of images depicting human−primate interaction

Abstract

Promoting human contact with wildlife can be harmful to animal conservation and welfare by exposing animals to unsafe situations and driving demand for wildlife tourism and exotic pets. As conservationists and researchers use social media to raise awareness, posting pictures of professionals with animals can have unintended negative consequences for conservation. Though the IUCN Best Practice Guidelines for Responsible Images of Non‐Human Primates suggests researchers and animal professionals caption images of humans interacting with primates to provide context, there is little research investigating whether this approach is effective. We investigate whether informative captions affect viewers’ desires to have primates as pets and attitudes towards wildlife conservation. Using four mock Instagram posts depicting human‐gorilla and human‐slender loris interactions, we surveyed 2,977 respondents to assess the effect of captioning on viewers’ perceptions of the images and primate conservation. Likert scale response data were analyzed with ordered probit regression models. Informative captions resulted in significantly higher agreement that posts depicted wildlife research (gorilla β = 0.28 ± 0.06, p < 0.001; loris β = 0.18 ± 0.06, p = 0.002), but such captions resulted in no significant difference in responses about viewers’ desires to own primates as pets or questions regarding the primates’ conservation statuses. While most participants agreed the primates were endangered, more than 56% and 59%, respectively, stated they would have a gorilla or loris as a pet and/or that it would make a good pet, further supporting the conclusion that captioning does not minimize harmful impacts of images of human‐primate interaction.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Global wildlife trade and trafficking contribute to the world’s nonhuman primate conservation crisis

“…Taken together these studies reveal that regardless of whether a primate was legally or illegally purchased as a pet, the acceptance and normalization of primate imagery contributes to the demand fuelling the primate pet trade (Quarles et al, 2023). This has critical implications for primate welfare and conservation even when captions explain the context in which the image was taken (Freund et al, 2023).…”