Viral Videos May Endanger Cute Animals

In early 2009, a man in St. Petersburg, Russia uploaded a video onto Vimeo and YouTube in which he tickles his pet pygmy slow loris — a small, threatened Asian primate. The footage quickly went viral, garnering millions of views and thousands of comments. But videos like this one, of "cute" exotic species, may be fueling the illegal pet trade of the animals — pushing them towards extinction, new research suggests.

Researchers analyzed the public's perception of slow lorises (Nycticebus) by perusing more than 12,000 YouTube comments posted over a three-year period in response to the tickling slow loris video. Viewers most frequently commented on how cute they thought the slow loris in the video was, but comments expressing a desire to own one of the animals — or even asking where to get one — came in at a close second. Read more...