The Factors Affecting Aquatic Animal Protection

Some animals benefit a lot from human protection, while others are abused and exploited. The exact reasons for protecting some and not others vary, and are not always clear. It’s assumed that many different factors play a role, including whether the animal is ‘cute’, how closely humans come into contact with them, whether humans have campaigned for these animals, or whether these animals are intelligent by human standards.

This paper looked at the role of science in helping animals to gain protection, specifically focused on the scientific framing of agency, sentience, and cognition for aquatic species. To do this, researchers compared three categories of animals with very different levels of scientific understanding — cetacea (cetaceans such as whales, dolphins, and porpoises), thunni (tuna), and octopoda (octopus) — to determine how much the available levels of scientific data helped their cause by comparing two factors.

First, they looked at the level of protection that these animals are given – and the history of why and when these protections were enacted. Here, cetaceans have benefited greatly from various environmental and welfare initiatives over the past 80 years including the creation of the International Whaling Commission, and considerable research about their intelligence and ethology. Octopods have started to gain more attention in the last 10-15 years, being recognized more as sentient and highly intelligent — but this has yet to lead to comprehensive protections globally. Finally, tuna face the most uphill battle: there is no legislation anywhere in the world recognizing that they are worthy of individual protection, and the protections that do exist are focused on their status as fish stocks.

Secondly, the researchers tried to gauge scientific impact, examining how much data is available about intelligence and conservation of these animal categories, and when this science emerged. They looked at how many papers were published about animals from these categories, and when. They also looked at the history of protection efforts for each category, to determine how big a role was played by this evidence, and by scientists.

They found that scientific evidence of animal agency, sentience, or cognition didn’t in itself mean that these animals would gain meaningful protection. In other words, there was not a causal effect between a greater degree of scientific evidence and a higher level of protection. However, they did suggest that this evidence might be an important tool for advocacy efforts, and that these advocacy efforts may not succeed if there was no scientific backing.

The researchers also identified other factors that could help drive conservation efforts, including whether charismatic scientists advocate for these animals, whether an advocacy movement takes up the cause, and how humans culturally relate to specific categories. The researchers also suggested animals being seen as individuals can play a crucial role. In other words, science may be important, and it is usually helpful in justifying pre-existing sympathies, but protections will gain more traction if animals can be shown to have a greater degree of individuality. 

Although the report is useful for understanding why some aquatic animals are valued more than others, it’s important to understand its limitations. The report was wide-ranging, but it did not go into detail about how any of the factors it mentions work in practice. In other words, it did not show which of these factors is most important, or the specific process by which one creates change.

Nevertheless, advocates can take several important lessons from this report. For scientists, evidence of animal agency, sentience, and cognition can play a valuable role in justifying conservation campaigns. Meanwhile, any evidence that helps to underline animals as individuals to the general public can move the needle for advocacy. The presence of charismatic scientist advocates for these animals can be especially influential.

For non-scientists, this research shows that scientific evidence is not enough on its own. We need to use and illustrate the evidence that exists in creative ways to make people feel an emotional connection with different species, because it is through these emotions that people begin to change their behaviour.