On June 7th 2024 PI Dr. Cameron Whitley will be giving a talk at the Whatcom Museum from 6-7 pm in tandem with the National Geographic Exhibit being displayed in the Museum.

For more information about the Exhibit please see here: Whatcom Museum

For all those who were not able to attend the Rescheduled Brainless Beauties seminar, a recording is now available on youtube for all to watch.

Watch the recording here: Brainless Beauties

The original date of the talk was cancelled due to speaker illness. All people who originally registered for the event will receive a reminder email from Zoom for the new meeting link.

1/24/2023

Unfortunately Brainless Beauties: Assessing How Zoos and Aquariums Depict Marine Animals without Faces presented by Kaitlin Barrailler and Cameron Whitley had to be cancelled today due to one of our presenters falling ill.

We will update you all on when the event has been rescheduled. If you are unable to attend the new date of the event but have already registered, a video recording will be made and you will be notified when it is available.

1/15/2024

Hello Community Partners:

In our ongoing project to assess what images work best at gaining attention and promoting empathy, we are looking for images from zoos, aquariums, and community members to test in our study. 

What are we looking for? 

• We will be running experiments on images of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and invertebrates. We need four unique animals for each category.

• For each animal selected, we need a high quality/publishable quality animal portrait and a traditional wildlife photograph.

Definitions: 

Animal Portrait: This is a category of animal photography that captures the animal in a way that closely resembles a human portrait in style. This means that the animal subject should be facing the camera with a black, white or highly blurred background. 

Traditional Wildlife Image: This is a category of animal photography that captures the animal in what appears to be a natural (unaltered) setting. This type of image showcases the animal and the habitat the animal would naturally live in. 

Example of Comparison:

Image Comparison 1: Saiga as traditional wildlife vs saiga as animal portrait.

Image Comparison 2: Banana cockroach as traditional wildlife image vs banana cockroach as animal portrait

If you have images that you would like to submit to potentially be part of this project, please complete the photo release form (found in Forms tab). 

12/8/2023

The Animals & Society Institute, in collaboration with Cameron T. Whitley and Kaitlin Barrailler present:

Brainless Beauties: Assessing how Zoos & Aquariums Depict Marine Animals without Faces.

Register Now.