Everything about Charismatic Megafauna totally explained
Charismatic megafauna are
large animal species with widespread popular appeal that
environmental activists use to achieve
conservation goals well beyond just those species. Examples include the
Giant Panda, the
Asian Elephant, and the
Blue Whale.
Environmental activists and
ecotourism seek to use the leverage provided by charismatic and well known species to achieve more subtle and far-reaching goals in species and biodiversity conservation. By directing public attention to the diminishing numbers of Giant Panda due to
habitat loss, for example, conservation groups can raise support for the protection of the panda and for the entire
ecosystem on which it depends. (The Giant Panda is portrayed in the logo of the
World Wide Fund for Nature.)
An editorial in
The Economist magazine suggests that charismatic megafauna are particularly subject to
taxonomic inflation, in that taxonomists will declare a
subspecies to be a
species because of the advocacy benefits of a unique species, rather than because of new scientific evidence. Another reason for inflating species may be the public's willingness to identify with species as sold through the ecotourism industry. In the public perception, ecotourism may be about seeing species, and the number of unique species increases the tourism biodiversity and
value of an area.
Beginning early in the twentieth century, efforts to reintroduce extirpated charismatic megafauna to ecosystems have been an interest of a number of private and non government conservation organizations. Populations of species have been reintroduced from captive breeding programs (
California condor) and from zoo populations (the
European Bison to Poland's
Białowieża Forest). These and other reintroductions of charismatic megafauna, such as
Przewalski's Horse to its native
Mongolia, have been to areas of limited, and often patchy, range compared to the historic ranges of the fauna.
Notes and references
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