Did the movie Finding Dory increase demand for blue tang fish?

Diogo Veríssimo, Sean Anderson, Michael Tlusty

Open access · hybridAbstract read

In one paragraph

Article in Ambio, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it

0cells of the map it votes in

2citing papers in PubMed

4.3field-weighted citation impact, top 6% of its field

1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed, 28 citations in OpenAlex.

Dogs on Film: Status, Representation, and the Canine Characters Test.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024
Article
The Welfare of Animals in Australian Filmed Media.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021
Article

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.

Diogo VeríssimoOxford Martin School, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. verissimodiogo@gmail.com.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3519-6782

Sean AndersonPacific Biological Station, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 3190 Hammond Bay Rd, Nanaimo, BC, V6T 6N7, Canada.

Michael TlustySchool for the Environment, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, 02125, USA.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada · CAMansfield University · USUniversity of Massachusetts Boston · US

Funding

Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford Oxford Martin Programme For the Illegal Willife Trade

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Representations of wildlife in television and films have long been hypothesized to shape human-wildlife interactions. A recent example is Pixar's film Finding Dory, which featured a blue tang fish (Paracanthurus hepatus) as the main character and was widely reported in the popular press to have increased the number of such fish in the pet trade. We use Bayesian posterior predictive counterfactual models to evaluate the movie's effect on three metrics of societal behaviour. Although there was an increase in global online searches for the blue tang 2-3 weeks after the movie, we find no substantial evidence for an increase in imports of blue tang fish into the US, or in number of visitors to US aquaria compared to counterfactual expectations. It is vital that an evidence-based discourse is used when communicating potential impacts of popular culture on human-wildlife relationships to avoid loss of credibility and misdirection of conservation resources.

Indexed as

Conservation of Natural ResourcesMotion PicturesAnimalsAnimals, WildBayes TheoremFishesHumansBehaviour changeConsumerDemandImpact evaluationOrnamental fishWildlife trade

Identifiers

PMID31410777

DOI10.1007/s13280-019-01233-7

PMCPMC7028816

OpenAlexW2967642930

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata

LicenceCC BY

Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.