Think before you like
Inspiring visitors to take action for wildlife
When visitors leave Te Nukuao Wellington Zoo, we want them to feel excited and inspired about wildlife and wild places. By offering conservation messages and conservation actions throughout the Zoo, we give visitors a variety of ways to make a difference so they can choose the ones that fit best into their lifestyle.
A survey we ran determined that deforestation was our visitor’s number one concern when it came to conservation. So, for over 10 years now, our main conservation action has been “Buy FSC” which promotes the Forestry Stewardship Council, a non-profit that certifies wood and paper products are sustainable sourced. The FSC logo can be found on FSC certified products (such as toilet paper, books, furniture, and many more) all over New Zealand and the world, making it incredibly accessible to people and offering a chance for people to be mindful of what they consume.
Redeveloping our Otter habitat gave us the opportunity to introduce a new Conservation Action. We wanted to find one that was simple for people to implement into their day-to-day lives while also encouraging mindfulness in how people consume, just like our “Buy FSC” campaign. Most people engage with social media in some way every day, if not multiple times per day. While some content may seem harmless at first glance, it can have wider consequences that we wanted to make people aware of. A relevant example of this is content including exotic pets, as the issue that most affects Otters, and many other animals today, is animal trafficking.​
Our Think Before You Like campaign encourages people to be mindful of what content they consume and engage with on social media. A video of someone caring for an otter or monkey in their apartment may be cute, but one must ask themselves: How did this creator get this animal? Is it possible for this animal to be properly cared for in this environment? Were any unnecessary procedures performed to make this animal (such as canine teeth removal to reduce risk of biting, or removal of scent glands to keep the animal from smelling bad)?
The best thing to do when you come across these videos is to not engage with the content at all. Scroll past and don’t like, comment, or share the video. Even comments speaking out against the pet trade still count as engagement and can boost the video’s reach. We hope that this campaign will provide people with another simple action they can incorporate into their normal life that will help end animal trafficking. We have installed this Conservation Action signage at Otters and Capuchins. and we also incorporate this conservation action into our daily talks, animal encounters, and tours so that the message is presented in a variety of ways to different visitors.
Even small things can have big impacts. We hope that giving people the tools to make these little changes empowers them to continue to make changes and become champions for the natural world.
