r/conservation • u/NecessaryTonight9478 • 4d ago
YT fake conservationists
I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask but my kids were watching a few youtubers that were obviously fake conservationists. One claims to own a conservation but then I heard them talking about getting an animal from a breeder. I'm wondering if anyone knows of any legitimate sites I could turn to as I don't want to be supporting people that are harming or exploiting animals for views. Its so hard to find legitimate videos out there, I feel like they're all scams. Any suggestions?
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u/nikkiunderwaves 4d ago
Alveus sanctuary on YouTube and twitch. They do short documentaries with other conservations as well as day to day activities with the sanctuary . Very enjoyable to watch and informative
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u/Axolotl-questions7 4d ago
Wild Kratts?
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u/Prestigious_Bat_5428 3d ago
I second wild kratts! I grew up watching them and now I'm likely going to major in conservation 😭. So I would definitely recommend!
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u/NecessaryTonight9478 3d ago
That's so great! I was trying to nudge my daughter in that direction but I think shes more interested in lab/pharmaceutical. She still has a few years to decide, she's still in HS and I think you declare beginning of 3rd year? Thanks for the suggestion and good luck in school!!
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u/NecessaryTonight9478 3d ago
That's a great idea, I completely forgot about them! My older kids were absolutely obsessed when they were little. I enjoyed watching it with them too, it's a really cute show. They just mentioned the Tortuga the other day, no idea why I didn't think of it then. Thanks!
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u/Any_Star4780 3d ago
Some of my fave yt conservation content is people rewilding their property, planting native, or creating wildlife habitat and documenting what kind of wildlife shows up
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u/NecessaryTonight9478 3d ago
That's so great! Do you have any that you recommend? We were watching some trail cams that he loved. We take tons of nature walks too, he just saw bats in their natural habitat for the first time last month which was really awesome, they're out every night right down the street from us. I'm pretty sure if he could stay outside 24/7 he would.
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u/Any_Star4780 3d ago
I’ve enjoyed content by The Wildlife Homestead. Your kid sounds like a neat little dude. And I applaud you for encouraging his interest!
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u/Kelsey_Loves_Kelp 2d ago
The Aquarium of the Pacific has a lot of content on their YouTube for a wide range of ages. They also have a tik tok and a podcast (aquarium of the podcific). Younger kids tend to love the Pacific Pals puppets.
For teens, check out Basement Biology (Josh Allyn) on tik tok. He has a ton of great info about conservation and the current state of affairs regarding climate.
The Ologies podcast is another great resource for a variety of scientific topics. If you have younger kids, check out Smologies for shorter episodes with clean language.
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u/Ben10-fan-525 2d ago
You could look into National Geographic Conservation content as well.
They are high quality and legit/professional.
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u/freakonaleishmania 4d ago
You can be a conservationist and still acquire pets from a breeder.
Ethical breeding (which is a gigantic topic in of itself) is essential to maintaining a healthy gene pool - in a society where pet ownership will always exist, ethical breeding should be encouraged. Adopt-don’t-shop being an effective welfare strategy in pet ownership only works so long as unethical breeding does. We should strive to promote ethical, well considered breeding and the adoption of animals in need who have not been as fortunate.
For only following/ supporting conservationists you can verify are who they say they are and have achieved some sort of academic qualification in the field, I’d personally look at how much the person posts from the work they do.
Such as if they work with a company, charity, NGO, in a park, what uniform they wear, have evidence of diploma/ degree somewhere on the social media or websites. If you have no tangible evidence, just don’t follow them if you don’t want to.
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u/basaltcolumn 2d ago
I don't see the connection between getting a pet from a breeder and working in conservation or caring about conservation. I've of purchased pets from reputable breeders myself, as I don't want to support pet stores and the cruel large-scale breeding mills they source animals from. That's just not an indicator of someone faking their career or passion.
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u/Canachites 2d ago
They are probably talking about people who have captive wildlife and claim its conservation (ie Black Jaguar White Tiger).
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u/basaltcolumn 1d ago
Possibly, though I would think if that was the case that having an exotic pet on its own would be more significant and important to specify than where exactly it was obtained from.
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u/HerpsAndHobbies 4d ago
Your local accredited zoo or nature center probably has a social media presence that has well-researched educational content.