Or: Why we want you to care about all the animals (even the ones you don’t like)

Working in communications for Replacing Animal Research puts me in a really strange position.

I joined Replacing Animal Research because I’m an animal-rights advocate and my dream was to be somewhere I could help make the world better.

Like everyone else, I have certain animals that hold an extra special place in my heart. I live with two (inside) cats, who I think are the absolute bees knees. There’s a family of wood pigeons living in my garden to whom I bring only the finest seeds. I have a crow who follows me to the shops sometimes. There’s a whole mischief of field mice who live in a blackberry bush not too far from me. I’m blessed with a pond full of frogs.

Basically, I’m living my wind in the willows dream.

Then I clock in and our individual personal connections become a data point. I can see in cold hard numbers which animals people get passionate about, want to share, care about.

And… Vitally, I know which animals people just don’t care about as much.

The data shows human empathy has clear, stubborn favourites.

Navigating that data and using it to build strategy feels, frankly, bizarre.

The numbers vs. the reaction

Last year, 381,443 experiments in Britain used fish, mostly Zebrafish. They’re the second most commonly used animal in research.

Survey data reveals that over 20% to 30% of the public are either outright sceptical or unsure if fish can feel pain or experience suffering, scoring them significantly lower on “belief in animal minds” compared to mammals and birds. There’s even been a few, fairly recent, rogue scientific papers saying fish can’t feel pain, although experts disagree.

In fact, decades of biological consensus tell us that fish have complex nervous systems, feel pain, experience stress, and possess impressive long-term memories.

But when we talk about fish, it’s some of our worst performing content.

They live in an environment we cannot live in. We live in an environment they cannot live in. They don’t express emotions in a way we can instinctually recognise. Our worlds don’t really collide (until we make them.)

It’s very easy to “other” fish and see them as quite alien, rather than fellow animals.

Let’s hear it for the rodents

Then we have mice, the most commonly used animals in research.

They account for over 70% of all animal procedures in Great Britain, nearly 1.9 million experiments a year. They form complex social bonds, trade favours, and display empathy toward one another. Yet society has spent centuries categorising them as “pests” or “lab tools” to make it easier to ignore what happens to them.

The species used in the highest volumes are the exact same one’s society has decided are unworthy of our emotional investment or respect. You can hire someone to come to your house and kill all the mice living their lives there and it’s perfectly above board.

However, if you look at our stats, you’d think every day is ‘be nice to mice day’. Our supporters love mice. They understand the complexities of mice and love everything about them from their wiggly tails to happy squeaks.

Sometimes, it can lull me into a false sense of security. Then I speak to someone outside the choir I’m preaching to and remember, ah, yes, that’s right, it’s not popular to care that much.

Over 55% of people consistently state they are more comfortable with research on mice and rats than on larger mammals, primates, or companion animals (cats and dogs).

Which leads us on to…

Our pets in the lab

Dogs occupy a unique, almost sacred place in human society, and understandably so. They share our homes, read our body language, and live alongside us as family. When dogs, specifically beagles, are used in laboratories, it rightly sparks outrage and garners widespread media coverage.

Beagles even have ‘specially protected’ status in law alongside primates, cats, and horses.

Speaking of cats, very few are used in research but it’s still something which really gets to me. I look at my two, think about them having to live a life in a lab, and I cry. Seeing a creature we know so intimately in a laboratory setting hurts. It hits close to home.

That ‘specially protected’ status doesn’t even extend equally across the species that share it. Non-human primates, for example, have high levels of intelligence, rich emotional lives, and a complete inability to live a fulfilling life in a laboratory setting. Yet, they rarely command the same level of public outcry as a dog.

The comms paradox

This creates a strange cognitive dissonance for anyone trying to advocate for animals.

As a communicator, my job is to get your attention and, really, to get you to care as much as I do. In the digital world, attention is currency. The easy win is always to feature animals’ people already love. It’s safe, it gets the clicks, and it algorithmically works.

To post about a fish or a mouse means knowingly fighting the algorithm and human psychology at the same time.

When we look at our data, we see the bias of the world reflected back at us. But our goal isn’t to conform to that status quo, it’s to change it. So we’ll keep sharing about fish and mice until the algorithm catches up.

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