A group of researchers supported by FAPESP analyzed 192 news stories about Brazilian deer species (Cervidae) published on the Internet between 2011 and 2021 to find out whether the news about the endangerment of these animals corresponds to the real risk of their extinction.
In an article about the study published in the journal Biological preservation the researchers conclude that news articles found via the Google News search engine correctly identified most of the threats to the eight deer species found in Brazil, but ignored, underestimated, or overestimated the threats to specific species.
The news gave different weights to some threats when compared to the Red List of Threatened Species maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The IUCN Red List is the most comprehensive inventory of the world’s conservation status of biological species. Additionally, the news ignored pet disease transmission and low reproductive rates as factors affecting the survivability of deer species.
“We ranked the frequency of threats in news reports and developed a separate ranking of threats listed by the IUCN. Some of the news dealt with issues that coincided with the main threats identified by scientific studies as extinction risks. In other cases, however, reports overestimated threats such as road deaths and underestimated the impact of animal disease transmission,” said Rúbia Ferreira dos Santos Morini, first author of the article and currently a master’s student at the Institute of Biology (IB-UNICAMP).
threats
The authors compared three groups based on the animals’ vulnerability to certain threats: all deer species combined (Group A), species of the genus Mazama (Group B), and species of the genera Blastocerus, Ozotoceros, and Odocoileus (Group C).
Group B included the Red Brocket Deer (Mazama americana) and Small Red Brocket Deer (Mazama jucunda), which live in forests and are threatened by habitat fragmentation such as the Atlantic Forest.
Group C included the swamp deer (Blastocerus dichotomus), pampas deer (Ozotoceros bezoarticus), and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), all of which live in more open environments such as the Cerrado and Pantanal.
Researchers also produced two threat frequency rankings, from 0 (none) to 6 (most common), based on the IUCN Red List and news articles. They used statistical techniques to analyze the correlations between the rankings.
Correlations were high for Group A, where the main threats were poaching (illegal trade and killing of wildlife), habitat loss/fragmentation and dog attacks, but the news underestimated livestock diseases and overestimated road deaths, stories about which are popular in the media , although this threat is less significant than low reproductive efficiency and population sustainability (deer have few annual offspring).
“If an animal is hit by a moving car, people are also at risk. This is probably the reason for the high media attention given to road traffic fatalities,” said Márcio Leite de Oliveira, the last author of the article.
The results for groups B and C were less positive. News reports correlated little with actual threats in the former case and little in the latter, with only deaths from dog attacks being of equivalent importance.
Poaching and habitat loss rank first and second as threats according to the IUCN, but in the news this order is reversed due to the many reports of deer “invading” cities, alongside the under-reporting of poaching and the difficulty in controlling it identify hunted species when “deer meat” is found.
Regarding Group C, there was a similar amount of reports of dog attacks, disease, road deaths and low reproductive ability, while dogs are deer’s worst enemies according to the IUCN. “In the case of this threat, which we called robbery by domestic dogs, there was a significant gap between the amount of news reports and the number of cases reported by official channels and scientific networks, possibly because there are no human witnesses to these attacks” said Oliveira.
There may also have been regional discrepancies, the authors note, since most of the analyzed news came from the south-eastern region of Brazil, where population density is higher and there are more internet and smartphone users.
Common mistakes
The authors highlight the prevalence of erroneous information in the news, noting that this can hinder educating the public about the importance of wildlife conservation. Reports of people finding lonely fawns, for example, tend to assume they were abandoned by their mothers or are orphans, confirming efforts to bring deer into captivity. However, the scientific literature shows that females often abandon nestlings to forage and soon return with food.
The researchers also note that the many news reports of deer being found in urban areas make little mention of the main reason, which is habitat loss due to urban and agricultural expansion. “It is important that messages address the root causes of the reported situations. Only then will readers understand, for example, the link between the presence of deer in urban areas and the destruction of nature,” Morini said.
Finally, the lack of information on diseases that affect deer, such as bluetongue, which is caused by a virus transmitted by mosquitoes that bite sick livestock, contributes to the fact that domestic animals cannot be isolated from wild animals in agricultural areas, and helps keep the virus circulating.
“We hope our findings will underscore the importance of the media as a source of information about threats to wildlife. We also hope that they will engage both the media and the scientific community to work together towards the protection of these species,” Oliveira said.
Citation: News coverage highlights some threats to deer conservation but may mislead or omit important information (2023 March 15) retrieved March 15, 2023 from https://phys.org/news/2023- 03-news-coverage-highlights-threats-deer.html
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