All organizations love media attention, and wildlife conservation groups are no different. Both the positive and negative stories promote conservation work. The more eye-catching the headline and the cuddlier the species the better. It all draws attention to the plight of threatened wildlife.

Media attention often helps conservation practice, but it can also achieve the opposite. In their quest to be short and sensational, media often distort conservation messages. Even worse, unintended side effects from media exposure can increase the threats to species. Negative impacts of media attention on wildlife conservation are surprisingly common but often overlooked. Conservation organizations need to improve how they use the media to benefit wildlife conservation.

Recently Professor Serge Wich of the Liverpool John Moores University published a paper on Sumatran orangutans. The study indicated that the population was twice as large as previously estimated. This was not because populations had increased. Instead, the latest surveys had covered areas not visited in previous surveys. Wich commented that “we explained these caveats clearly in the paper, but newspapers nevertheless ran the story that Sumatran orangutans had doubled.”

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