#wait so the line is taking the prediction for all coordinates for each species for each species’ initial coordinates. and not pseudoabsence | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

callumd1001-blog · 4 years

Text

Why do some People become Parents? Results from a Reddit Survey [Serious]

Abstract

Parenting—defined as the act of raising a child as one's own—is perhaps the oldest societal tradition of human beings. Judging from related animals species, such as the Great Apes, we have likely been raising children longer than we have been growing crops. That being said, the choice of having or adopting even one child—that is to say, the choice to become a parent—is a decision which has great impact upon one's life, arguably one of the biggest choices a person can make.

There is a large and diverse group of people—around the whole world—who deliberately go their entire lives without having children. The reasons for this are quite varied: some consider children an obstruction to completing one's goals in life, others harbour a disliking of children, while still others avoid having children out of fear that they might turn to be an abusive and/or negligent parent. Throughout present day media and society, on both an interpersonal and global scale, the childfree population is subject to a significant amount of misunderstanding, under-representation, and—in some cases—discrimination. In particular, the majority of outspoken, self-identified childfree people are female, highlighting how commonplace gender roles affect the roles that parents have in society, which also impacts the decision of whether or not one wishes to eventually become a parent at all.

Introduction

First, the technical, functional definitions of the word “parent” must be fully understood for the purposes of our research. Merriam-Webster has multiple definitions of the word, ranging from “one begets or brings forth offspring” [14], to “a person who brings up and cares for another” [14]. This second, somewhat looser definition is the one that will be used for this paper; while the different ways of becoming a parent (birth, adoption, parenting of kin, etc) were accounted for in the survey, it is the motivation that was ultimately focused on more than the method.

One possible explanation for the root cause of deliberate parenting is offered by the field of evolutionary psychology. To quote researcher Helen Fisher, “Humans and other mammals have evolved three primary emotion systems for mating, reproduction, and parenting”, with those being lust, attraction towards potential mates, and attachment to them, forming close social bonds [16]. The study of parenting's evolutionary origins has brought to light how parenting is a drain of resources on behalf of the parent, which trades those resources to give one's offspring a better chance of survival [15] [17]. Research has found that human fathers tend to invest more time and energy into taking care of children who closely resemble them in visual appearance and smell: an outcome predicted by evolutionary psychology [15]. However, the evolutionary need to pass on one's own genes is an insufficient explanation for the motivation behind parenthood: alloparental care—defined as an individual temporarily caring for another's child [2]—has been reported in 270 mammalian and avian species [1], including humans [18]. This is despite the fact that alloparental care, particularly that provided by aunts and uncles, has been found to only negligibly improve the child's chances of survival [18]. These findings hint that perhaps an evolutionary perspective does not entirely provide all the answers into why parenting is still an extremely popular trend in human society, necessitating an inquiry into the thought processes of people who themselves engage in parental care, and those who willingly abstain from it.

A plausible, personal, non-evolutionary reason for having children—that might strike one as being obvious—is that having children is supposed to bring joy to whomsoever takes care of him/her. Objectively, however, factual data on the impact that children have on personal happiness is mixed, with different researchers making radically opposed statements on the matter. A joint University of Texas/University of Denver study found that, “Compared to pre-birth levels and trajectories, parents showed sudden deterioration following birth on observed and self-reported measures of positive and negative aspects of relationship functioning.” [11]. This was compared to couples who had spent the same amount of time together without having children—who suffered a more gradual deterioration in relationship functioning—indicating that many of the changes may stem from the birth itself [11]. These changes were mostly the same across both genders, although mothers were found to struggle more with problem intensity and conflict resolution [11]. However, it was noted that parents and non-parents are not equivalent groups, and some of the deterioration in parental couples may be for reasons not directly caused by the children. For instance, having a child may serve as a barrier to divorce, but not a cause of the initial relationship dissatisfaction [11]. In regards to how couples are affected by the burden of child-rearing, a professor from Binghamton University noted, “'Parents often become more distant and businesslike with each other as they attend to the details of parenting.'” [12]. “Mundane basics” that arise from taking care of a child's basic needs take priority in the lives of parents, changing their verbal interactions to be focused more on topics related to domestic duties—such as coordinating a grocery shopping trip and changing the baby's diapers—with less time spent socializing in a casual, friendly manner [12]. It should also be noted that children place a burden on any form of romantic relationship, regardless of income level, marital status, gender orientation or national residence [12].

In contrast to these findings, however, is another study conducted between the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) and the University of Western Ontario, which claims parenting to have the opposite effect upon couples. According to the researchers, “Consistent with existing work, we find that happiness increases in the years around the birth of the first child, then decreases to before-child levels.” [13]. Happiness was found to increase with the first 2 children a couple has, with additional children correlating to no increases in relationship satisfaction. Couples who were older and/or more educated also enjoyed a larger rise in personal happiness. These findings were similar between both Britain and Germany, indicating that parents who postponed child-bearing received the most significant emotional reward for doing so [13].

As to why these studies make different claims, there could be a number of reasons. Excluding potential researcher bias and flaws in the ways that experiments and/or surveys were designed, it is possible that demographics can majorly alter the results that researchers in this field have not yet effectively managed to notice and control for. However, it can be tentatively stated that scientific evidence points to couples which become parents can either experience improvement or decreases in their mood, largely depending on their specific circumstances, while changes to personal dynamics are both significant and permanent. It can also be said that any statements which claim a universally true life alteration granted by childbirth—either desirable or otherwise—should be met with considerable skepticism.

Given that objective changes in parenting-related happiness are not the same as the perceived possible benefits, this research has some limits in understanding why people choose to have children. However, it can be inferred that if a single parent or couple experiences a decline in life satisfaction immediately following the birth/adoption of a child, they will be unlikely to willingly undergo the experience again.

In relation to the potential drawbacks of having children, there is the concept of people who simply never have children in the lifetimes, particularly those who are childless by choice. These latter people are commonly known as the voluntarily childfree [22] [23] [24]. Voluntary childlessness is a social issue [23], with those who are childfree by choice experiencing pressure from society to have children [24]. An example of this societal pressure is how women in their mid-to-late 20s are denied access to sterilization procedures on the basis that they are too young for it, even after explicit requests for said procedures [20]. In North American culture, it is a social more that married couples should both want children and actually have them [22], while people who willingly abstain from having children are regarded as social deviants, and looked down upon accordingly [10] [22] [23]. Negative stereotypes about the voluntarily childless can be traced back to the 1970s, and are consistent from then to the 21st century [10].

A commonly stated line of reasoning, held by the voluntarily childless, is that children interfere with career ambitions [10] [20] . It should be noted that most young women plan on having children, and say as much in surveys [10]. However, most young women also wait before having children—effectively being childless by choice during their prime reproductive years—and some become childfree by choice due to holding off on reproduction for so long [10]. The reasons for this are likely quite variable. A 2002 Italian survey tallied 859 childless, Urban residents into different categories of being childfree. 36% of the women were always single, 22% were either sterile or avoided reproduction due to physical problems, and 30% of the women chose not to have children for “other reasons” [22]. The diverse scope of childfree women shown in this survey can be used to help understand the circumstances of women outside of Italy, and how the reasons for being childless are neither simple nor ubiquitous. However, because statistics on the voluntarily childfree do vary greatly between nations of the European Union [22], this would be better served as an example of how there could be a multitude of different reasons for a North American woman to be childless, rather than a direct demographic estimate of Canada or the U.S..

On a global scale, the Total Fertility Rate—which is the average number of children born to women of a given country—is going down [31] [32]. One possible correlation is the rising age of marriage, meaning that people are generally having children when they are less fertile [32]. In the developed world, the TFR is noticeably lower: in the U.K. and many nations in Western Europe, the TFR is 1.7, when the Total Fertility Rate needed to maintain a population at the same level—the replacement rate—is 2.1 [31] [33]. The United States also has a TFR below its replacement rate, but only for the native born, while immigrant residents actually have a Fertility Rate above replacement levels. However, TFR declines drastically in immigrant populations by the 2nd generation, presumably due to an increased access to education and income [31]. Currently only half of Earth's countries have a TFR above the replacement rate, but as nations economically develop, they experience a corresponding decrease in fertility rate [33]. According to the CIA's World Factbook, as of 2017, 118 out of the 224 nations catelogued have a TFR below 2.1 [34].

In short, having children is a conscious choice that many people in modern day society have decided, for any or all of a number of reasons, not to partake in. On both a personal scale and a global one, the reality is that a social change is underway, one which sees a reduced presence of children in adult life.

Methodology

This research paper was written to ask the question, “Why do people have kids?” Bearing in mind that some people never have children of their own, it also asked the question, “Why do some people not have kids?” Distinctions between planned parenthood and unforeseeable pregnancy/circumstantial adoption were also considered. Similar distinctions were kept in mind as to why people remain childfree: for some, it is a deliberate choice, while others do not come around to having children due to circumstance. Along with external factors, it could be surmised that the primary reason people do or do not become parents is because of their own predictions on how children would impact their own futures, from a more or less self-serving interest. The hypothesis being tested here is that people generally make the parenting choice prioritizing their own happiness, followed by perceived duties to their family, society as a whole and in order to fit in with their group of peers.

The originally planned methodology of this research project was to have 2 separate surveys—one for parents and guardians, the other for childfree people—to do a compare/contrast analysis. These surveys were titled Why do People become Parents?: Survey For Parents and Guardians and Why do People become Parents?: Survey For People who Currently Do Not Have Children respectively. Both surveys shared some questions and were designed to gather the same kind of information, with some parts of them adjusted to their target audience accordingly. In the beginning stages of this project, the hardest part of conducting research was finding a sufficient sample population to partake in these studies. Given that the project's head researcher has limited funds and very little influence in the social science community, the best that could be done was to post the surveys online in the hopes that enough people would take interest in them. Reddit was used as the primary site for this: with an explanation of the surveys and the research project being posted to Reddit's r/parenting thread and its r/childfree thread. Both surveys were linked to in these posts, along with the incentive that the research paper will be published online after it has been marked by the head researcher’s school.

Due to differences between these two Reddit communities, and the inherently random process of garnering attention from strangers on the internet, the post and accompanying survey on r/childfree gathered significantly more responses than the survey for parents. 429 responses were accumulated in the Survey For People who Currently Do Not Have Children, which is written in a Google Drive document designed to collect aggregate data for this exact kind of survey. The rising number of responses experienced a number of spikes in the following 2-3 days after it was initially posted online; after the survey's attention started to die down, further responses to the survey were denied in the interest of making the collection of data easier. At this same time, the Survey For Parents and Guardians was automatically banned from r/parenting for breaking the subreddits rules, which meant the survey only got 2 respondents who came from a link on the r/childfree post. Keeping in mind this gross imbalance between the two surveys, and the potential difficulty in making the Survey For Parents match the success of the Survey For People who Currently Do Not Have Children, it was decided to continue only with the data gathered from 429 voluntarily childfree responses.

Like all surveys, the participants' anonymity and volunteered consent were kept in mind. No personal information any more intrusive than general demographic data was specifically asked, and all participants were made aware of how they could skip any question which they felt uncomfortable with answering; some participants elected to do this accordingly. The Reddit post was also updated with a notification on how many results were gathered, the fact that further responses were turned off in the Google Drive, and a rough estimate of when the research paper is likely to be published. No detailed information on the head researcher’s school or how my work was marked is going to be published; this was also made clear in the Reddit post.

It should be mentioned that, while diverse, Reddit's r/childfree community is not a perfectly random selection of childless people. For instance, given that this is an online forum for people who self identify as childfree—as opposed to those who are childfree without actively discussing this fact amongst their peers—there is already a potential factor that could influence responses to questions asking why they are childfree. Furthermore, the fact that these participants were gathered from an English speaking community accessible through computers also unbalances the sample population: most respondents claimed to live in the U.S.A., the U.K., or the E.U., with smaller or singular groups stating residencies in other nations of the world. This sample bias manifested in other, less easily explainable ways, such as how more of the survey's participants identified themselves as Pagan rather than Hindu, despite the fact that Hinduism is the world's 3rd largest religion, after Christianity and Islam [25]. The key thing to note here is that while the survey's sample group is culturally diverse and it is global, it is not a balanced representation of the Earth's childfree population.

Some of the survey used multiple choice questions that asked users to assess their own feelings and/or mental states, available options used terminology such as “None at all”, “Average”, and “Very high”, instead of a potentially more concrete rating such as 1 to 10. This is because numbered ratings, while more precise, also carry a degree of subjectivity: one person's “6” may be another person's “7”. Multiple-choice questions had followup questions for participants who felt that their real answer was not included in the multiple-choice segment, along with those who wished to elaborate upon their answers. These questions allowed participants to write whatever answers they wished, without restriction. The final question also asked participants to freely state any personal experiences, aspects to the parent or childfree decision, along with any other topics of interest that may have been neglected in the original survey. Fortunately, many of the participants took this opportunity to significantly increase the depth of their answers, providing a much greater bevy of information.

The self-purported happiness of participants was also investigated, along with if their children or lack of children could have had any major impact in parts of life such as career, education and relationship status. Given the complexity of gender, racial and ethnic identification, respondents were asked to freely state their identification in these demographics, rather than selecting from a multiple choice (such as “Are you White, Black or Asian?”). The same approach was taken with questions regarding gender orientaion, gender identification, and disability.

Results

(It should be noted that, due to 2 responses which mirrored the answers of the responses immediately previous to them—in both cases using the exact same wording in freely-spoken answers—it was assumed that there were 2 incidents during this survey wherein a participant accidentally sent in their answers twice, possibly due to being unsure if the first response went through. Thus, despite the survey having 429 answers, only 427 respondents will be referred to from here on out)

Out of the survey's 427 respondents, the majority were female, with 341 (81.3%) participants identifying as such. 74 (16.66%) of the participants identified themselves as male, while 5 identified as non-binary—including one non-binary female—2 genderqueer individuals, a single person identified as a Transgender Male, and finally 2 people listed their gender identities as “other”.

Age varied across the board, with the largest age group being those in their mid-to-late 20s, followed. by individuals in their early 30s and teenagers. 10 participants answered that they were between the ages of 13 and 18 (13 being the youngest age of all 427 respondents), while 82 people said they were between 18 and 23. 125 individuals were of the ages between 23 and 28, and 104 participants were between 28 and 33. 60 were aged 33 to 38, 23 between 38 and 43, with 5 participants aged 43 to 48. 8 people were aged 48 to 53, and 4 were between 53 and 58. Beyond this age, there was a single participant aged 60, an individual who was 71, and 2 people who have lived 72 years.

In regards to race, since participants identified themselves as they wished, “White” and “Caucasian” were tallied separately in respect to the distinctions between the two; “White” colloquially refers to those of European and occasionally Middle Eastern heritage, while Caucasian is a larger ethnicity which encompasses traditionally white people along with other racial groups, such as those of South Asian, Central Asian, or North African descent [26]. That being said, both groups made a clear majority in this survey, both individually and especially when counted together.

216 participants identified themselves as White, while another 122 claimed Caucasian heritage. The other racial groups were: 30 Hispanic and/or Latinx people (3 of whom were White Hispanics), 16 individuals of Asian descent, 13 Mixed Race people, 7 Black people, 5 participants of recent European heritage, 4 Native American people (2 of whom were mixed race with White ancestry), 3 Jewish people (2 of whom were also White) and 13 participants who gave identifications that were unclear or otherwise non-applicable.

Separately from race/ethnicity—and further down the line of questions to further distinguish the two—participants were also asked of what nation they were currently residing in at the time of the survey. 277 respondents were living in the United States of America, with another 42 living in the nation's northwards neighbour of Canada. These two nations made a clear majority of the survey respondents, followed by 31 residents of the U.K. and 13 from Australia. After these 4 countries were 9 people living in the Netherlands, 5 from Germany, 5 from Sweden, 4 living in Japan, 4 in Poland, 3 in India, and 3 in France. Additionally, there were 2 people from Ireland, 2 from the Czech Republic, 2 from Denmark and 2 from Scotland. The remaining 15 answers were all from people who were the only members of their respective nations represented in the survey. These nations are: Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Columbia, Panama, Hungary, Ukraine, Italy, Romania, Norway, Singapore, Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, and Kenya.

As for sexual orientation, the most common responses were identifications of being heterosexual/straight, followed by identifications of bisexuality. 240 respondents identified as straight, 93 participants were bisexual, and 12 stated they were gay/lesbian. Other identifications included 17 asexuals, 14 pansexuals, 4 queer people, 3 people with gray sexuality, and 6 people who gave other non-heteronormative identifications.

Regarding Disability, subjects were given the option to describe—in their own words—any and all disabilities they identified as having. Some participants described their conditions as “mild” or even questioned their status as a disability, while others described conditions that are chronic and noticeably impact their lives: disabilities of all manner of severity and manifestation were recorded for this survey. A total of 79 individuals reported having at least 1 disability; 25 of these participants reported having 2 or more disabling conditions. 31 participants reported physical disabilities—such as Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Diabetes, Endometriosis, among others. 15 instances of Depression and 14 cases of Anxiety were reported, with 6 individuals stating that they had both conditions. 17 participants described having other Mental Health conditions which they were the only one out of the 427 to experience, conditions such as Misophonia. 14 participants described having ADHD, and 20 people said they had a form of Autism Spectrum Disorder. It should be noted that this last number may not be proportionate: the head researcher described having Autism in their description of the research paper and its goal as a school project (which may have made Autistic r/childfree members more inclined to take the survey than others), although the paper was only made accessible through the disability-blind online community of r/childfree, and was not posted on any Autism forums. 3 individuals described having learning disabilities, 2 experience Tourette's, and 1 person said they are deaf.

Participants were asked what their religious identifications were—if any—followed by a multiple choice question querying how much their beliefs impacted one's decision making in life: ranging from “Not at all”, “A little” “Noticeably” and “Significantly”. 260 participants described themselves as having no religion or faith, while 38 additional people referred to themselves as either Atheist or Agnostic. Both these counts include people who formerly ascribed to a particular belief system and/or were raised by it, before they lost their faith. 38 participants identified themselves as Christian—of any denomination—along with 6 people who affiliated themselves with the Pagan faith, and 3 Hindu individuals and 1 practitioner of Reform Judaism. 4 people described themselves as Satanist, with 1 Agnostic Satanist and 2 people who affiliated themselves with the Church of Satan/LaVeyan Satanism. Founded by Anton Szandor LaVey, the Church of Satan is an Atheist organization which uses Satan as a metaphor, and does not consider him or any other religious symbol to exist in the real world [27] [28]. Given that one person did not specify which form of Satanism they follow, it is unclear what their actual religious stance is, although it is likely that all 4 individuals were referring to the Church of Satan. Other religious identifications included a Buddhist, one follower of the Druid faith, a Wiccan, one follower of Hellenic Polytheism, a person who believed in a higher power but subscribed to no particular religion, and an individual who followed a “self made” religion; these latter participants all selected “None at all” for the survey's question on faith and life choices. 3 Pagans said that their faith had “a little” influence on their decision-making, while 2 said that it had no impact and 1 found the influence noticeable.

As for how much religious faith impacted the participants' life choices, 347 (83.2%) said that it had no impact whatsoever. With this number, it is important to bear in mind that while the majority of participants had no religious faith or belief in the existence of deities, some irreligious/atheistic people did say that their beliefs had an impact on their life choices. 8 irreligious people said their beliefs had “a little” impact on their choices in life, while another 2 said the impact was “noticeable”, and 2 said it was “significant”. With the Atheists respondents, 3 said the impact was “noticeable” and 2 answered that it was “significant”. 6 Christian participants said that their faith had no impact, 16 answered that it had a little effect, 11 that the impact was noticeable, and 2 said that it was significant.. 2 of the Satanists said their faith had a “significant” impact on decision-making in life, with a third describing the impact as “noticeable” and another saying that it had “none at all”.

Despite the fact that religious influence on life choices was understandably higher among those of religious faith, it is still worth noting that the majority of participants said religion had no impact on their decisions. This could possibly mean one of two things. The first interpretation of this data is that religion tends to encourage people to have children, which would make childfree people who lead a life influenced by faith a minority, as represented by the demographics of this survey. The other interpretation is that religious teachings are irrelevant to the decision on whether or not one should become a parent, and the discrepancy between religious and irreligious participants is caused by an additional factor, perhaps related to Reddit not being an entirely representative sample population of Earth's population. Given the sheer amount of diversity, and rigidity, of religious principles and rules, it is possible that both interpretations are equally too.

The relationship statuses of participants were also tallied, opening the conversation up onto that topic should it be a relevant factor as to why or why not a person may choose/be able to have children. 171 (40.3%) of participants stated they were in a romantic relationship equivalent to having a boyfriend or girlfriend. 134 (31.6%) of volunteers were single at the time of the survey, and 112 (26.4%) identified as being currently married. 12 participants (2.8%) were engaging in polyamorous relationships. Additionally, 8 (1.9%) participants stated to have experienced a previous divorce, while 31 (7.3%) respondents stated that they have never been married.

However, the influence of a romantic partner(s) might not be as great as initially thought by the research team. When asked by multiple choice, 389 (90.9%) of the respondents stated that their desire to have a child is completely independent from the wishes of their current or future romantic partner(s). Only 24 (5.6%) participants stated that such influence could be possible, answering with “maybe”, while 15 (3.5%) responded “yes”, indicating that their partner's desires would impact the participants' own decision on whether or not they would have a child.

Related to the above, when given the multiple-choice question of “How strong is your current desire to have children?”, with answers ranging from “None at all”, “Low”, “Average” and “High”. 382 respondents (89.3%) stated they had “none at all”. 36 (8.4%) of participants claimed to have a low desire for becoming a parent, 3 (0.7%) had an “average” desire, and 7 (1.6%) had a very high desire to have children. Comparing the results from these 2 questions, there is perhaps something to be said for how strongly people feel about the correctness of their choice on whether or not have to children, and that most people are strong-willed enough to make the decision for themselves instead of defaulting to the wishes of a romantic partner. If nothing else, the answers to this question prove that the vast majority of the self-identified childfree community—at least, those who join the conversation via Reddit—are indeed childfree by choice, negating the possibility that most people who never become parents are so merely because of circumstance, not intention.

A low or non-existent desire to have children would seem to be a primary motivational factor—or lack of motivational factor, as the case may be—for the majority of people who identify themselves as childfree online. When given the question, “Is there any particular reason why you have not had a child?”, and asked to select any and all answers which may apply to them, 388 (90.7%) of participants stated that one noticeable reason was that they simply had no desire to. 367 (85.7%) of the respondents additionally claimed to have made a deliberate choice to not have children. 21 (4.9%) participants said that they are only childfree currently, and are waiting to have a child once their life affairs (education, career, etc) are in order. 5 (1.2%) respondents said they were waiting for the right romantic partner to raise children with; the same number of participants also said they were waiting until all participating family members—including future grandparents and so forth—were prepared to have a baby. 4 (0.9%) participants were struggling to have children either due to infertility, issues with adoption, or other circumstances, while one (0.2%) respondent did have a child who has unfortunately passed away.

Participants were also asked to select between a number of potential influencing factors—if any at all—with the question, “Do you feel like your choice to have children is largely commented on, influenced by and/or attempted to be influenced by any of the following?”. Given that participants were allowed to select any number of options, the goal behind this question was to see which influence had the most impact on each individual person, and rather to determine which influences were the most prevalent, according to the individuals who profess to have had personal experience with them. 422 of participants chose to answer this question, selecting any number of the available answers.

249 (59%) of participants cited society as a whole as a social factor which judges and/or impacts their status as childfree people, making it the most predominant influencer as voted by the survey's volunteers. The second largest influencer/commentator described was family, with 177 (41.9%) of respondents selecting it. In regards to other interpersonal influences in the childfree life, 121 (28.7%) of participants stated that their peers—described as classmates, coworkers, and so forth—became involved with their childless status in some way, compared to only 78 (18.5%) of respondents saying the same about their friends. This could potentially mean one of two things: either a childfree person's friends are more understanding and tolerant of his/her choices (perhaps as a consequence of the more intimate knowledge friends have of each other compared to coworkers), or that childfree people tend to select friends who do not judge them for their life choices, and likely have less freedom being paired with colleagues in a work and/or school environment.

The third largest social factor to impact the lives of childfree people was the media, according to 168 (39.8%) of people who took the survey. 116 (27.5%) of respondents stated their local culture was a noticeable factor, and 37 (8.8%) stated that other factors not otherwise specified impacted their lives as well. Furthermore, 149 (35.3%) of participants stated that no outside factor affected their decision to be childfree.

On the topic of how social influences impact one's child-making decision, participants were asked the following question, “If any of these factors are influencing, or attempting to influence, your decision to have a child, how does that make you feel?”. Participants were allowed to answer in their words, with similarly-written answers being counted in the same groups and tallied together for the purposes of this paper. Some participants had short, concise answers, others made multiple statements that were similar to what their peers had made; each form of answer was tallied individually, in order to see which thoughts and feelings were the most commonly shared among all group members.

Of the 226 participants who wrote a response to this question, 36 said that they were ignoring outside factors which attempted to influence their decision—and otherwise made little to no impact on their lives, while another 18 said that the judgments passed onto childfree people and the pressure put on them to have children actually strengthened their motivation to remain childless. 42 participants were quoted as feeling “annoyed”, at persuasive comments regarding their status as childfree, 61 people said they felt angry and/or frustrated when their decision was judged by others, 3 people said they felt isolated and 2 reported feelings of anxiety on the matter. A separate 15 individuals made statements indicating the social pressure made them feel upset in some other manner. 9 participants stated that the social factors listed in the preceding multiple-choice question made them feel guilty and ashamed of their decision to not have a child; in direct contrast to this, 15 individuals were of the opinion that this pressure to have children is disrespectful. Furthermore, 49 participants made complaints that they did not feel a true freedom of choice in the decision of not having a child, and 13 people described personal questions and/or criticisms of their childfree status as an invasion of privacy. 14 people said that they felt a lack of acceptance and understanding from those who were informed of their childfree status. 37 participants stated opinions that society at large harbours and encourages prejudice towards childfree individuals, 21 of whom making specific comments on how societal expectations of parenthood are misogynistic, such as by enforcing traditional gender roles. 8 participants recounted being personally discriminated against directly because of their choice of remaining childless, while an additional 6 female volunteers told stories of how they were denied medical procedures—even after request—because their doctors prioritized the patients' fertility over personal desire or ambivalence towards becoming sterile. Another 14 participants reported feeling a lack of understanding and/or acceptance on the behalf of those made aware of one's chidlfree status.

Some of the most interesting results of this survey were not the answers given to specific surveys, but the information that participants volunteered in sections given for those who felt that the multiple-choice questions failed to address their situations. Indeed, several participants gave similar volunteered statements in regards to several subject matters that pertain to being childfree, which shall be listed here.

One topic—which was admittedly overlooked during by the questions in the survey—was that some women avoid having biological children as a consequence of a deep-seated aversion to the intense processes of pregnancy and/or labour. 43 participants—42 of whom were female, the other identifying as “Nonbinary/female”—all voluntarily described, in way or another, wishing to avoid the process of undergoing pregnancy. 19 of these women either said they had a fear of pregnancy and/or labour, or explicitly diagnosed themselves with Tokophobia. A further 15 participants explained that they were unwilling to go through the—often permanent—bodily changes that result from pregnancy, and another 3 wished to avoid the mental affects that childbirth can have on a person such as Post-Partum Depression. 6 women stated that pregnancy was too dangerous for them to consider the process worth it, and 4 cited personal medical complications reasons against pregnancy. 5 women expressed that they considered pregnancy to be disgusting and/or painful, and the remaining 7 women simply stated that they wished to avoid becoming pregnant.

62 individuals professed a disliking of children as one of their reasons for being childfree. Perhaps this number could be seen as surprising: either that so many people could dislike children, or that so few of the respondents had this as their primary reason for being childfree, indicating that the choice to become a parent—in many cases—is much more complex than whether or not one enjoys the company of children. 50 of these individuals identified as female, 8 as male, 3 as non-binary/agender/genderqueer, and 1 gave a not-applicable answer.

Moral and ethical considerations were also volunteered by some participants as additional reasons why they have decided not to have children, or at the very least, not give birth to biological children. Some participants stated more than one ethical reason, and the vast majority considered the morality of childbirth alongside the other—more interpersonal—factors that were also discussed in the other answers to this survey. Again, these answers will be tallied individually, with the emphasis on which moral reasons were the most popular or commonly stated, without going into the specifics of how many people cited each type of answer individually.

31 participants cited their and/or their partners' genetics, which were perceived as undesirable, onto another person. 20 of these people also either identified as having a disability which profoundly impacts their lives—such as a significant physical disability, or Autism Spectrum Disorder—or mentioned having mental health problems such as anxiety and depression, that they felt would be cruel to pass on to an unwilling newborn. Another 8 were concerned of passing on an inheritable condition that runs in the family bloodline. Outside of genetics, 10 participants cited a familial history of domestic abuse, instilling an aversion towards raising either biological or adopted children in order to stop the cycle of abuse. 17 participants expressed concern that they would turn out to be ill-suited as parents for other reasons, 3 of whom citing their disliking of children as a possible instigator of this.

4 participants stated that they felt bringing new life into the world is inherently cruel and/or selfish, with another 3 specifically citing “anti-natalism” as one of their reasons. “Anti-natalism is the view that it is (almost) always wrong to bring people (and perhaps all sentient beings) into existence.” [29]. Another common anti-natalist argument against bringing new humans into the world is the impact our species has on Earth's climate [30]. Outside of anti-natalism and the belief that childbirth is inherently cruel, several participants did cite human overpopulation and anthropogenic impact on the environment. 19 participants stated a desire to protect the environment as one of the reasons they have chosen not to have children, while another 13 cited the human population crisis as their moral problem; an additional 26 participants described both of these moral considerations as factors contributing to their childfree decision. This totals to 58 individuals who felt that either one or both of these long-term, global trends were significant enough to their personal lives to at least be a partial influence in the childfree decision. Finally, 14 participants expressed the fear that their region's current political situation would curse any children they raise with a life of hardship, persecution, or even danger.

The monetary cost of raising children was cited by 51 participants as a factor against their wanting to have kids, with another 6 people stating that their financial situations made parenthood impossible.

Finally, the impact that newly introduced children have on a person's life—in particular, personal happiness and self-satisfaction—were also brought up by participants as factors influencing their decision. 47 people described a desire for freedom, sufficient free time, or otherwise wished to avoid the restrictions in life that parenting naturally creates. 18 participants felt that having a child would interfere with their career goals and another 8 said the same in regards to their life goals and hobbies. Particular activities which participants felt child-rearing would interfere with include travelling, as cited by 11 people, and sleeping, according to 8. Finally, 24 participants stated that they were content in their marriages/romantic relationships,and decided to not have children in order to preserve this comfortable dynamic.

Conclusions

When analyzing all of this data—both the survey's questions that were answered, and the information that participants gave without prompt—there are certain conclusions that can be drawn in relation to why people decide they are better off avoiding children of their own, why many prospective parents consider biological children a poor choice for themselves, and how society as a whole interacts with the childfree population.

First off, it needs to be made clear that the reasons behind many childfree decisions are both diverse and complex, with some individuals making their choice based largely on a single factor, with others citing dozens of reasons behind their aversion of parenthood. It could be surmised that some of the more commonly stated reasons—such as wishing to fully commit to one's romantic partner, devoting oneself to a satisfactory career and personal life, or simply disliking children—do all have personal happiness and potential changes to it as a central consideration. This partially confirms this research paper's original hypothesis: which is that people primarily make the choice of whether they will become a parent based on if they believe children will bring either a positive or negative change to their lives. However, the second part of the original hypothesis—that the choice is also made based on how a person wishes to serve their family, society and fit in with peers—has been largely disproved. Many of the survey respondents made it very clear, both in answering the multiple-choice questions and writing their own answers, that their decisions were often made not because of outside social factors, but regardless of them. In fact, while local communities, peer groups, media and society at large often attempt to persuade people into having children, these attempts at influence do not easily succeed, and serve little more than to create tension between parents and childfree people. Perhaps this research paper could be used as evidence of the fact that all types of people in the world, including those who are raising the next generation of humanity, and those who have good reason not to do so, need to find a common ground, in order for childfree people to be better understood in the modern era.

References

1, Riedman, M. L., The Evolution of Alloparental Care and Adoption in Mammals and Birds, [1982, Dec], The Quarterly Review of Biology 57, no. 4, retrieved 2019, April 2nd, https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/412936

2, Alloparent, [2019], Merriam-Webster, retrieved 2019, April 2nd, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alloparent

3, Laucius, J., Oops! 61 per cent of Canadian women have an 'unintended' pregnancy, says survey, [2017, June 19th], The Ottawa Citizen, retrieved 2019, April 9th, https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/oops-61-per-cent-of-canadian-women-have-an-unintended-pregnancy-says-survey

4, Statistics -Abortion in Canada, [2019, Jan 30th], Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, retrieved 2019, April 11th, http://www.arcc-cdac.ca/backrounders/statistics-abortion-in-canada.pdf

5, Number of abortions reported in Canada in 2017, by provider and territory, [2019], Statista, retrieved 2019, April 11th, https://www.statista.com/statistics/988694/canada-abortions-by-provider-and-territory/

6, Black, A. Y., Guilbert, E., Hassan, F., Chatziheofilou, I., Lowin, J., Jeddi, M., Filonenko, A., Trussel, J., The Cost of Unintended Pregnancies in Canada: Estimating Direct Cost, Role of Imperfect Adherence, and the Potential Impact of Increased Use of Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptives, [2015, May 1st], Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada, retrieved 2019, April 11th, https://www.jogc.com/article/S1701-2163(16)30074-3/pdf

7, Rochebrochard, E, D, L., Joshi, H., Children Born After Unplanned Pregnancies and Cognitive Development at 3 Years: Social Differentials in the United Kingdom Millennium Cohort, [2013, Sept 25th], Oxford University Press, retrieved 2019, April 11th, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3775543/#

8, Canadians Uphold Abortion Policy, Split on Health Care System’s Role, [2008, June 20th], Angus Reid Institute, retrieved 2019, April 11th, https://web.archive.org/web/20130122175148/http://www.angus-reid.com/wp-content/uploads/archived-pdf/2008.06.20_Abortion.pdf

9, CANADIANS DECISIVELY PRO-CHOICE ON ABORTION, [2010, April 1st], EKOS Politics, retrieved 2019, April 11th, http://www.ekospolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/full_report_april_11.pdf

10, Chauncey, L., Dumais, S., VOLUNTARY CHILDLESSNESS IN MARRIAGE AND FAMILY TEXTBOOKS, 1950–2000, [April 2009], Journal of Family History, retrieved 2019, April 16th, https://academic.csuohio.edu/kneuendorf/c63309/ArticlesFromClassMembers/Wendy.pdf

11, Doss, B. D., Rhoandes, G. K., Stanley, S. M., Markman, H. J., The Effect of the Transition to Parenthoood on Relationship Quality: An Eight-Year Prospective Study, [2010, March 1st], National Centre for Biotechnology Information, retrieved 2019, April 16th, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2702669/

12, Johnson, M. D., Have children? Here’s how kids ruin your romantic relationship

, [2016, May 6th], The Conversion, retrieved 2019, April 16th, https://theconversation.com/have-children-heres-how-kids-ruin-your-romantic-relationship-57944

13, Myrskylä, M., Margolis, R., Happiness: Before and After the Kids, [2014, April 16th], SSRN, retrieved 2019, April 16th, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2425147

14, Parent, [2019], Merriam-Webster, retrieved 2019, April 23rd, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/parent

15, Callaway, E., Looking like daddy has material rewards, NewScientist, retrieved 2019, April 23rd, https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17285-looking-like-daddy-has-material-rewards/

16, Fisher, H., Lust, Attraction, Attachment: Biology and Evolution of the Three Primary Emotion Systems for Mating, Reproduction, and Parenting, [2000, Jan], Journal of sex education and therapy, retrieved 2019, April 23rd, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287427679_Lust_attraction_attachment_Biology_and_evolution_of_the_three_primary_emotion_systems_for_mating_reproduction_and_parenting

17, Smiseth, P. T., Evolution of Parental Care, [2018, April 26th], Oxford Bibliographies, retrieved 2019, April 23rd, http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199941728/obo-9780199941728-0014.xml

18, Nitsch, A., Faurie, C., Lummaa, V., Alloparenting in humans: fitness consequences of aunts and uncles on survival in historical Finland, [2014, Feb 4th], Behavioural Ecology, retrieved 2019, April 23rd, https://academic.oup.com/beheco/article/25/2/424/225750

19, Parenting in America, [2017, Dec 17th], Pew Research Center, retrieved 2019, April 24th, https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/17/parenting-in-america/

20, Pearson, C., Meet The 20-Somethings Who Want To Be Sterilized, [2017, Dec 6th], retrieved 2019, April 24th, https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/10/24/female-sterilization-young-women_n_5882000.html

21, Contraceptive Use in the United States, [2018, July], Guttmacher Institute, retrieved 2019, April 24th, https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/contraceptive-use-united-states

22, Basten, S., Voluntary childlessness and being Childfree, [2009, June], St. John's College, Oxford & Vienna Institute of Demography, retrieved 2019, April 24th, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.701.9495&rep=rep1&type=pdf

23, Kim, J, M., Yang, S., A Qualitative Research on the Voluntary Childless Family's Choice Motives and Social Perceptions, [2013, Oct], Journal of Korean Home Management Association, retrieved 2019, April 24th, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264144811_A_Qualitative_Research_on_the_Voluntary_Childless_Family's_Choice_Motives_and_Social_Perceptions

24, Pelton, S, L., Hertlein, k, M., A Proposed Life Cycle for Voluntary Childfree Couples, [2011, Feb 24th], Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, retrieved 2019, April 24th, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08952833.2011.548703

25, Hackett, C., McClendon, D., Christians remain world’s largest religious group, but they are declining in Europe, [2015, April 7th], retrieved 2019, May 22nd, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/05/christians-remain-worlds-largest-religious-group-but-they-are-declining-in-europe/

26, Bhopal R., Donaldson, L., White, European, Western, Caucasian, or what? Inappropriate labeling in research on race, ethnicity, and health., [1998, Sept], 1303-1307, AM J Public Health, retrieved 2019, June 11th, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1509085/?page=2

27, Welcome to the official website of the Church of Satan., [2019], Church of Satan, retrieved 2019, June 13th, https://www.churchofsatan.com/

28, F.A.Q. Fundamental Beliefs, [2019] Church of Satan, retrieved 2019, June 13th, https://www.churchofsatan.com/faq-fundamental-beliefs/

29, Asheel, S., Furthering the Case for Anti-natalism:Seana Shiffrin and the Limits of Permissible Harm, [2012, Jan 31st], University of Johannesburg, retrieved 2019, June 14th, https://www.academia.edu/37734901/Furthering_the_Case_for_Anti-natalism_Seana_Shiffrin_and_the_Limits_of_Permissible_Harm

30, Gander, K., The people who think the world would be better if humans went extinct, [2017, Feb 7th], https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/antinatalism-people-think-world-earth-better-off-if-humans-not-exist-humankind-extinct-a7565591.html

31, Nargund, G., Declining birth rate in Developed Countries: A radical policy re-think is required, [2009], Facts Views Vis Obgyn, retrieved 2019, July 7th, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4255510/

32, Eslami, M., Decreasing Total Fertility Rate in Developing Countries, [Dec 10th], J Family Reprod Health, retrieved 2019, July 7th, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5440814/

33, Gallagher, J., 'Remarkable' decline in fertility rates, [2018, Nov 9th], BBC News, retrieved 2019, July 7th, https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46118103

34, COUNTRY COMPARISION :: TOTAL FERTILITY RATE, [2017], The World Factbook, retrieved 2019, July 7th, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html

#childfree #poll #reddit

1 note · View note

csrgood · 4 years

Text

How Technology Is Protecting Endangered Species

Cambodia is home to 16 globally endangered species, like the Asian elephant, tigers, and leopards. Conservationists there are working with a Harvard computer scientist to stop the poaching that is pushing so many species to the brink of extinction.

It's just one of a growing number of collaborations bringing technologists and conservationists together to fight to protect wildlife from being wiped off the face of the planet. Environmentalists have long had a daunting challenge ahead of them when it comes to protecting animals from poachers, habitat loss, pollution, and climate change. They're now hoping, though, that technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), drones, GPS trackers, smart cameras, and the cloud could give them the upper hand they've been looking for.

"It is horrifying to think about the possibility that we may be leaving a world behind where keystone species like tigers, elephants, and rhinos may just be gone," says Milind Tambe, the Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science and director of the Center for Research in Computation and Society at Harvard University. "We don't want to have to tell our children, 'Well, they're all gone.' We don't want a world like that."

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, which coordinates the organization's environmental activities, the earth is in the midst of a crisis, with 150 to 200 species of plants, insects, birds, and mammals reportedly going extinct every 24 hours. Biologists say that's 1,000 times the rate that's considered natural extinction. And a 2019 U.N. report notes that approximately 1 million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, many within decades. More recently, research from the University of Arizona suggests that one-third of plant and animal species could be gone in 50 years.

Here are some more alarming numbers:

In 2018, three bird species vanished from the earth.

In Tanzania, the elephant population has dropped by 20 percent in recent years.

Because of widespread poaching for their horns, as of 2018, there were only two northern white rhinos—both female and incapable of natural reproduction—left in Kenya.

An estimated 100 African elephants are killed each day by poachers seeking ivory, meat, and body parts.

Fewer than 450 North Atlantic right whales, including a little more than 100 breeding females, remain. With so many dying and so few being born, scientists warn that the species may not survive more than another 25 years.

With numbers so staggering and dire, conservationists around the globe increasingly are turning to technologists and tech to protect endangered animals and hopefully save them from extinction. Seeing the plight of many species, tech-savvy people are offering their time and expertise to track animals, analyze their habitats and availability of food, and better understand population dynamics.

It's not new for wildlife conservationists to draw on technology like cameras and tracking collars. What's new is the explosion in technologies like AI, machine learning (ML), the Internet of Things, 5G, wireless, and the cloud. And that explosion is touching many industries, including conservation.

"Every industry is going to be changed by it," says Jeff Kagan, an independent industry analyst. "It's transforming so much. It only makes sense that it's transforming wildlife protection. Where before they could never really follow the animals and the paths they take, and the things they're eating, and how they're living, now we can see exactly where these animals are and what they're doing. And think about how much it will advance in the next 10 years."

Outsmarting the poachers

Tambe, who for the past 15 years has been working on how AI can benefit society, made a slight turn six or seven years ago when he began to wonder how technology could be used to protect animals.

The computer scientist is the creator and driving force behind Protection Assistant for Wildlife Security (PAWS), predictive AI software geared to analyze massive amounts of data and then use ML, game theory, and mathematical modeling to take on the poachers decimating many species of animals around the world, including Cambodia.

For instance, intensive poaching of both Cambodian tigers and their prey have caused a rapid decline in the big cats. Today, the World Wildlife Fund reports that there are no longer any breeding populations of wild tigers left in the country, making them functionally extinct there. As for wild elephants, it's generally estimated that only 300 to 600 remain in Cambodia, down from 2,000 in 1995 and 500 to 1,000 in 1999, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N.

Normally, park rangers and environmentalists study maps trying to figure out where poachers may be laying traps or lying in wait to kill protected animals. The PAWS system goes beyond human gut instinct and crunches data to predict where the poachers will be working, where the animals are in the most danger, and the best patrol routes for the rangers.

Tambe has been extensively testing PAWS in Cambodia. Conservationists there are finding poaching traps five times more today than they were before they began using his AI-based system.

"I kept saying, 'I think AI can help,'" he says. "Where are the poachers going to hit next? There are thousands of square kilometers in national parks. There are hundreds of rangers. They can't be everywhere. If we can tell them where they need to be [to stop the poaching], that's important."

Now, Tambe's PAWS system is being adapted to work with 800 global national parks that use SMART (Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool) software to measure and evaluate the effectiveness of conservation and wildlife law enforcement. With the help of an AI engineer from Microsoft, Tambe has been working for the past six to eight months to integrate PAWS with the SMART software and enable it all to run in the cloud. The system, which so far has been running only on an experimental basis, is scheduled to launch this spring.

"We are honored to be able to contribute," he says. "Some people think of AI being a technology that might be harmful in some ways, maybe taking jobs away. It's a surprise to people that you can apply AI to protect wildlife and use it for social good. The gift to us, as AI researchers, has been opening the door to new AI research challenges so we can advance the state of the art in artificial intelligence."

Saving the salmon

In the Northern California foothills of the Sierra Nevada range, a group of conservationists, the Friends of Auburn Ravine, has been working to protect the local wild Chinook salmon, also known as king salmon. The salmon's numbers have been slashed by logging, dams, overfishing, and pollution. Scientists estimate that 29 percent of the Pacific salmon populations have become extinct in the past 240 years.

The group of volunteers set up cameras to record video of the fish as they migrate upstream to spawn every fall and winter. They were trying to collect data on the number of salmon swimming through, to garner support to improve habitat and facilitate natural migration of adult and juvenile salmon.

The problem was that volunteers were sitting and staring at a seemingly endless amount of video to count fish swimming by.

"It's boring work looking at the videos," says Brad Cavallo, president of Cramer Fish Sciences and a board member of the Friends of Auburn Ravine. "It's easy to miss something because you just space out, but estimates are important so we know how to set harvest limits and how the fish are doing."

Eric Hubbard, a master technologist who has worked at Hewlett Packard Enterprise since 1999, came along and changed that boring, but important, work.

Hubbard says two or three years ago, his dad, who is a volunteer with Friends of Auburn Ravine, told him about video watch parties where volunteers ate pizza and counted fish.

"It was a cool volunteer effort," says Hubbard. "I saw their enthusiasm and effort, but it hurt me to see them doing it so inefficiently. It took huge amounts of hours to look at videos to count these fish. I knew we could automate this and make it so much easier on them."

Hubbard, using the annual 60 hours of paid volunteer time he receives from HPE through the company's community involvement program, HPE Gives, traded out the volunteers' security cameras, which used proprietary protocols that were difficult to work with, for new digital underwater and overhead cameras—dubbed salmon cams—with standard protocols and formats.

Using the Java programming language, Hubbard wrote 5,000 lines of code to create a software program, called FishSpotter, to detect and document passing fish. Raw digital video is uploaded to the cloud, where FishSpotter processes it. Using advanced image recognition to detect activity and identify salmon, FishSpotter automatically produces short GIF highlights of any passing salmon, so humans can then review it to confirm the fish species.

The 2018-2019 migration season was the first to be monitored with the new digital system.

By eliminating the need to watch this large batch of data, FishSpotter was able to pare down 1.6 terabytes and 2,416 hours of raw data into just 101 gigabytes and 20.4 hours of GIF highlights for volunteers to vet and verify as salmon (or other wildlife or activity). In future seasons, Hubbard hopes to further refine FishSpotter's image recognition capabilities to narrow this data set of possible suspects down even further to further accelerate insights.

"I live in a real tech bubble," says Hubbard. "Everyone around me is tech-savvy. I look at these nonprofits and they're outside that bubble. They don't necessarily have the expertise to know what's possible. It's been very gratifying. Initially, it started out as helping people more than the salmon. Then as I got more involved, I was drawn into how important these fish are."

Tech to protect polar bears and rhinos

Colby Loucks, vice president of the Wildlife Conservation Program at the World Wildlife Fund U.S., says technology is increasingly a vital tool in wildlife conservation. And as a leader in the organization's Wildlife Crime Technology Project, which focuses on using cutting-edge technology to fight poaching, he says tech advancements have opened doors.

That's what led the group to create WildLabs.net, a global online community joining conservationists with technologists, engineers, data scientists, and entrepreneurs. With more than 3,000 active users, the group's mission is to use technology to tackle conservation issues, like illegal wildlife trade and poaching.

"We had conservationists trying to use technology, but they weren't technologists by training," says Loucks. "There were a lot of technologists around the world who have the skill sets, knowledge, and desire to help in conservation. WildLabs.net is about connecting those communities. We're piecing together innovative ideas between people with a conservation background and a technology background."

For instance, Loucks says conservationists are combining cameras with ML software trained to distinguish between animals and people. When the system identifies humans, as opposed to zebras or rhinos, passing by a camera, rangers are notified so they can check to see if the people are poachers.

Others in Africa are using thermographic cameras that use infrared radiation to detect elephant and rhino poachers.

Loucks notes that the smart thermal camera technology was installed in 2016 in two different areas of Kenya's Lake Nakuru National Park, a site known for its rhino conservation work. The year before the technology was installed, there were 17 attempted poaching events in the park, he says. The year the system was installed, two poachers were caught, and after that, there were no poaching incidents for the rest of the year and none in 2017 and 2018. In 2019, the system was used to catch another four poachers.

"We feel like that is a big success," says Loucks.

Some scientists are even using environmental DNA (eDNA) technology, which can detect genetic material, such as traces of biological tissue and mucus, obtained directly from environmental samples like soil, sediment, and water. Loucks explains that scientists studying polar bears can scoop samples from streams or footprints in the Arctic snow. From that, they can pull up DNA and use that information to identify what the bears have been eating and even identify individual bears.

"The dream is that you might not see a bear, but if you get a polar bear footprint, you could still know quite a lot about it, which would be a big leap forward for tracking polar bears and seeing how climate change is impacting them," says Loucks. "It is an exciting time to be in the wildlife conservation space right now. We've seen a lot of developments and efforts using technologies to solve problems."

source: https://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/43983-How-Technology-Is-Protecting-Endangered-Species?tracking_source=rss

#CSR #corporate social responsibility #social good #philanthropy #employee engagement #workplace givi

0 notes