{"id":41925,"date":"2026-02-26T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T15:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=41925"},"modified":"2026-03-06T12:36:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T20:36:24","slug":"the-cost-of-casting-animals-as-heroes-and-villains-in-conservation-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/the-cost-of-casting-animals-as-heroes-and-villains-in-conservation-science\/","title":{"rendered":"The cost of casting animals as heroes and villains in conservation science"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Adam Meyer<\/a>, Memorial University of Newfoundland<\/a><\/em> and Kristy Ferraro<\/a>, University of Michigan<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientists are philosophers, explorers, data collectors and number crunchers. They are also storytellers, placing data within a broader scientific and societal context. How they tell these stories matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our work<\/a> as ecologists<\/a>, we find that the \u201chero-villain\u201d narrative trope is a popular tool in ecology and conservation writing. For example, wild pigs \u2013 a hybrid of human-introduced wild boars and domesticated pigs \u2013 are often characterized in science articles as \u201cpest animals\u201d that \u201cdevastate\u201d or \u201cdestroy<\/a>\u201d ecological communities by preying on \u201cvulnerable\u201d species. One study deemed them the real \u201cbig bad wolf<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This framing does not reflect technical terms but storytelling decisions meant to help readers understand the data and results to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this way of storytelling has costs. In our recent paper, Beyond hero and villain narratives in ecology and conservation science<\/a>, published in 2025 in the journal BioScience, we demonstrate that simplifying complex ecological stories into good guys and bad guys is limiting the way ecologist and conservation scientists understand and communicate science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When villains don\u2019t fit the script<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In our paper, we show that using the hero-villain trope in ecology and conservation writing has three problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, by definition, a villain is not only doing bad but is morally bad. As a result, villains are judged and held accountable for their deeds. But plants, animals and ecosystems are not morally responsible for their actions because they do not operate within human-constructed moral frameworks. The hero-villain trope therefore invites an inappropriate moral interpretation of nature.
When species are reported as destructive or harmful without careful context, the audience can easily internalize the species as inherently \u201cbad\u201d or \u201cmalicious,\u201d which informs how we treat them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, human-introduced predators such as rats and stoats in New Zealand are often villainized in academic literature, described as \u201cdisaster on four paws<\/a>\u201d and pitted against the \u201cfragile populations of unique birds, lizards and insects<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This framing then can convince people that excessively painful or violent<\/a> eradication methods, such as slow-acting poison<\/a>, are justified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No clear-cut roles<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Second, real ecosystems don\u2019t have clear-cut heroes or villains. Rather, species\u2019 roles in ecosystems are complex. For example, white-tailed deer perform ecosystem functions such as helping disperse seeds throughout their habitat<\/a>, yet their presence can also lead to biodiversity loss<\/a> due to high levels of plant consumption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, reducing a species to \u201cgood\u201d or bad” can misrepresent the multidimensional roles of animals<\/a> in ecosystems, which frequently shift<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"An
A musk ox can affect ecosystems in very different ways, depending on its environment. imageBROKER\/Martina Melzer via Getty images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For example, due to the complex interplay between animals and soil properties<\/a>, in wet tundra environments musk ox can lead to an increase in ecosystem carbon storage<\/a>, while in dry tundra environments they can lead to a decrease in ecosystem carbon storage<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Good\u2019 or \u2018bad\u2019 depends on human values<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Finally, the hero\u2013villain framing embeds cultural and ethical assumptions without always acknowledging them<\/a>. These assumptions often reflect culturally specific beliefs about which species and ecosystems are valued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, many cultures value native species \u2013 typically meaning a species that has evolved in and occupied an ecosystem without human introduction. As a result, introduced animals are frequently deemed responsible for native species extinctions, even when evidence is lacking<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But whether a species is \u201cnative<\/a>\u201d is not automatically good or bad. Nonnative species can change ecosystems in ways that people value, such as restoring ecosystem diversity and functioning that was lost from human-driven extinctions<\/a>. At the same time, nonnative species can also cause changes that people do not value, such as reducing abundance of native species<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key point is that deciding which of these outcomes is \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cbad\u201d depends on human values. When scientists describe species as villains without explaining these values, the framing can present values as objective scientific conclusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A different way to tell the story<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Our paper highlights alternative narrative structures that scientists can use to engage readers without creating heroes and villains in academic writing and storytelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, a place-based narrative structure focuses on the description of a place and the characters within \u2013 think \u201cPlanet Earth,\u201d the BBC\u2019s landmark nature documentary series that immerses viewers in different ecosystems around the world.
This narrative structure guides the audience through a landscape and allows for the exploration of many characters in a nuanced, value-neutral and compelling way. A classic ecological example is Henry Chandler Cowles\u2019<\/a> study of the Michigan sand dunes<\/a>, which frames ecological dynamics through the instability of place itself. \u201cPerhaps no topographic form is more unstable than a dune,\u201d Cowles wrote, as plants must adapt \u201cwithin years rather than centuries, the penalty for lack of adaptation being certain death.\u201d The drama within the narrative comes from place \u2013 its constraints, its pressures, its opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another powerful narrative tool we highlight that can be applied to academic storytelling is the \u201cWill they, or won\u2019t they?\u201d structure, the kind of tension you see in \u201cPride and Prejudice\u201d or \u201cWhen Harry Met Sally.\u201d This structure can work surprisingly well in ecology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our paper, we highlight partial migration \u2013 whereby some animals in a population migrate while others don\u2019t \u2013 as an example of how someone could use this narrative tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientists are still figuring out why certain individuals make different choices. Is it driven by food availability<\/a>, the presence of predators<\/a>, or behaviors acquired by social learning<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Framing research narratives around that central, unresolved question \u2013 will an individual animal migrate or won\u2019t they? \u2013 builds suspense and keeps readers engaged, without casting a hero or villain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s no final battle scene in conservation. No singular villain to defeat, no final victory for the hero. Scientists know that understanding nature requires humility and a willingness to revise their stories as new information is gained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By moving beyond heroes and villains, scientists can tell narratives that make space for nuance, recognize their own biases, and acknowledge conflict without caricature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adam Meyer<\/a>, PhD Candidate in Ecosystem Ecology, Memorial University of Newfoundland<\/a><\/em> and Kristy Ferraro<\/a>, Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Michigan<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adam Meyer, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Kristy Ferraro, University of Michigan Scientists are philosophers, explorers, data collectors and number crunchers. They are also storytellers, placing data within a broader scientific and societal context. How they tell these stories matters. In our work as ecologists, we find that the \u201chero-villain\u201d narrative trope is a popular […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":41926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,7,10,25,39,118,15533],"tags":[9646,4248,885,891,886,860,4247,171,3524,4857,6610,193,1715],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41925"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41925"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41980,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41925\/revisions\/41980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}