The fear of certain animals may sometimes help justify the mistreatment of them. I mentioned that we are innately predisposed to fear certain animals. Since young, many of us were brought up with the idea that all snakes are deadly. Whenever we see a snake, we think that we are entitled to kill them to protect ourselves. This action repeated by many individuals eventually leads to the fall of the snake population.

Seeing snakes as dangerous makes us less empathetic and nonchalant towards their plight. We don’t see the need to not kill them, neither do we see the need to protect them. In fact, it might even be better if snakes go extinct since they are so dangerous to us. The fear people have resulted in them failing to realize the importance of snakes in the ecosystem.

Therefore, from the example of snakes, we learn that sometimes the fear of an animal might cause us to justify certain behaviors that may lead to their extinction. Also, conservation efforts saving such animals from the brink of extinction is less likely to touch our hearts compared to conservation efforts saving other animals. These efforts are less likely to be successful. Animals with an important role to play in the ecosystem are driven to extinction due to our fear of them.