Nekaris K Anne I, Musing Louisa, Vazquez Asier Gil, Donati Giuseppe
Nocturnal Primate Research Group, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK.
Folia Primatol (Basel). 2015;86(6):534-51. doi: 10.1159/000444231. Epub 2016 Feb 6.
Videos, memes and images of pet slow lorises have become increasingly popular on the Internet. Although some video sites allow viewers to tag material as 'animal cruelty', no site has yet acknowledged the presence of cruelty in slow loris videos. We examined 100 online videos to assess whether they violated the 'five freedoms' of animal welfare and whether presence or absence of these conditions contributed to the number of thumbs up and views received by the videos. We found that all 100 videos showed at least 1 condition known as negative for lorises, indicating absence of the necessary freedom; 4% showed only 1 condition, but in nearly one third (31.3%) all 5 chosen criteria were present, including human contact (57%), daylight (87%), signs of stress/ill health (53%), unnatural environment (91%) and isolation from conspecifics (77%). The public were more likely to like videos where a slow loris was kept in the light or displayed signs of stress. Recent work on primates has shown that imagery of primates in a human context can cause viewers to perceive them as less threatened. Prevalence of a positive public opinion of such videos is a real threat towards awareness of the conservation crisis faced by slow lorises.
懒猴宠物的视频、表情包和图片在互联网上越来越受欢迎。尽管一些视频网站允许观众将相关内容标记为“虐待动物”，但尚无网站承认懒猴视频中存在虐待行为。我们检查了100个在线视频，以评估它们是否违反了动物福利的“五项自由”，以及这些情况的有无是否影响了视频获得的点赞数和观看量。我们发现，所有100个视频都至少显示出一种对懒猴不利的情况，表明缺乏必要的自由；4%的视频仅显示一种情况，但近三分之一（31.3%）的视频出现了所有五项选定标准，包括与人类接触（57%）、在日光下（87%）、有压力/健康不佳的迹象（53%）、非自然环境（91%）以及与同类隔离（77%）。公众更有可能喜欢懒猴处于光照下或表现出压力迹象的视频。最近关于灵长类动物的研究表明，灵长类动物在人类环境中的影像会让观众觉得它们受到的威胁较小。公众对这类视频的积极看法普遍存在，这对懒猴面临的保护危机的认知构成了真正的威胁。
