Communicating Animal Topics
Animals have always been a topic of interest for me. As an educator that frequently uses animals during programming, I am always amazed by the different techniques that are used to communicate science topics using animals. In order to see how other scientists are currently discussing these topics, I made animals the focus of my third scientists and social media paper.
Liz Langley took the time to write about the ways that different species of animals drink. She went about discussing this topic by including headers throughout the article separating either the way the animal drinks and the places that the animals live. Langely chose the most interesting forms of drinking to keep her article interesting. Langley utilizes better known animals, such as dogs, to make certain behaviors more understandable. By only showcasing a certain few animals, Langley was able to keep the article short and interesting. She showcased how organization and keeping technicalities brief can clearly communicate scientific information to a public audience.
Amy Rankin focused on rescue animals that are used as ambassadors for their species. She focused on an animal rescue that is featured on the National Geographic Channel and the animals that it rescues and rehabilitates. For the most part, these animals can be rehabilitated and released back into the wild. However, the ones that can’t are used for education. What really struck me about this article is that Rankin did a really good job at demonstrating all the ways that a regular person can help. While the article doesn’t come forward and ask for volunteers or donations, the article highlights how this assistance helps and the good that the organization does without it sounding like they are asking for money.
Another method for communicating the science behind animals to the general public is through photographs. In the article How a Wildlife Photographer Captured a Healthy Ecosystem, Elaina Zachos discusses the photographer Paul Nicklen. This article was interesting because you would not necessarily consider photographers to be scientists, however they are truly at the forefront of conservation and science communication. Nicklen works for National Geographic and travels the world to photograph a variety of animals in fragile ecosystems. I thought that this article was interesting and important because we rarely see a “healthy” ecosystem so I think that these pictures will be important for showing that there is hope and good in the world. I also think that this article is important because people come into contact with the work of photographers more often than they do the latest scientific paper so how that information is communicated is important.
One interesting take on communicating animals is through taxidermy. Rachel Brown wrote an article about the last wildlife taxidermist in India, Santosh Anant Gaikwad. Gaikwad uses taxidermy as a way to preserve animals for educational use. However, in India, taxidermy is not practiced so Gaikwad has hurdles to jump over to further his taxidermy education. I thought this article was interesting and useful because we use a lot of taxidermy for educational purposes here and that must obviously be something they lack in India. It was interesting to compare the science behind taxidermy in the two different cultures.
The last article that I read, written by Benji Jones, focuses on live streamed bird cameras. These live stream cams allow people to watch birds hatch and live in the nests from the comfort of their own living room. Live stream bird cams have a way of bridging the gap between nature and the general public. These bird cams relay the shocking realities of nature including predator prey relationships and natural mortality events. The article goes on to provide links and information on five unique bird cams that people can watch. I thought this was well done because it used video as another way of bringing scientific topics to the public.
I thought that these were really interesting ways to communicate topics about animals. I liked the mixture of specimens, photos, videos, and written communication and thought that they all effectively got their points across. I thought it was really useful to focus on animal communication because there are so many ways to communicate about animals that will reach different groups of people.
