WASHINGTON, DC—World Wildlife Fund president Carter S. Roberts said Monday that his organization was forced to pare down the list of endangered species so that it would fit on a three-by-two-foot poster to be distributed to schools and private donors.
“If you want a poster that’s going to grab an audience, you show the gray wolf instead of the Iowa Pleistocene snail,” said Roberts, adding that no endangered mollusks made the final cut, and that, among insects, only butterflies would be included. “The poster is a visual medium. A large tear-jerking image of a giant panda might be redundant, considering that we have a panda in our logo, but it’s not like anyone is going to be inspired to protect wildlife by a photo of a nearly extinct medicinal leech. You go with what is going to bring in the dollars.”
According to Roberts, species that “realistically have absolutely no chance of surviving” were omitted so that the poster would not seem out of date in a couple of years.
