Here be dragons – how new digital tools aid in exploring humans’ perceptions towards reptiles, and their conservation

In an article published in Biological Conservation we tallied the number of page-views each reptile species’ page in all of Wikipedia language editions had during 2014. We further correlated these numbers with various other attributes of the reptiles.

Highlights

• We produced a global map of 55.5 million human-nature interactions
• Wikipedia page views illuminate global scale patterns of human interest in nature
• Different Wikipedia language editions reflect interests in their local fauna
• Being large, venomous, threatened and described earlier makes a reptile interesting
• Big-data approaches hold much promise for elucidating human-nature relationships

We found that venomous or endangered species, as well as those with higher body mass or posing a threat to humans, tended to be more interesting overall. There was also a bias towards species found in Wikipedia users' own regions – for example, the Japanese pit viper was top of the Japanese-language rankings, while the green iguana was the most-accessed species among Spanish speakers. With notable exceptions such as the sea turtle or Galapagos giant tortoise, species that are venomous or otherwise dangerous to humans seem to capture people's imaginations more than others. The Komodo dragon is found in a geographical area probably the size of a small English county, yet it consistently attracts the most attention – possibly because the idea of the dragon is so universal in myth and folklore.

Komodo dragon - Varanus komodoensis

There is a debate in conservation as to whether the fact that we as humans like a particular species justifies conserving it, regardless of its importance from an ecological point of view. But although this idea of some species being "culturally valuable" has been around for some time, it has been difficult to measure and define. Whether or not we want to take these cultural variables into account when shaping conservation policy, we need data to support those decisions. In our study we looked at 55.5 million page views in the year 2014 for all of the 10,002 species of reptile accessed in Wikipedia.

Black mamba - Dendroaspis polylepis

In the past we could have carried out basic surveys of a few hundred or a few thousand individuals to find out where their interest lay, whereas now we can do it with millions of people for an entire class of organisms on a global scale. Obviously there are limitations to using an online tool such as Wikipedia, but there are lots of benefits too. One of the key questions in conservation is where to divert the limited resources we have available. Do we prioritise rare or endangered species, ecologically important species, or species that attract the most public interest? The field is definitely split, but we're putting numbers behind some of these ideas, and that’s really important.

Among more traditional conservationists there may be the view that we shouldn't incorporate cultural values into decisions about policy or funding. However, the fact is that whether we like it or not, we already do – how much funding do lions get compared with, for example, a species of small snail that doesn't even have an English name, even if the snail is more at risk of going extinct? The biases are already there. There's also an argument that the traditional thinking around conservation hasn't quite worked, so we need to reframe our approach. Regardless of the point of view you take, having this sort of quantitative data is critical.

The findings of this article have been picked up by several news outlets such as The Guardian, Haaretz Daily Newspaper, as well as Mongabay, Oxford University news and many others.

Authors: John C. Mittermeier and Uri Roll