In defense of the world’s most reviled vertebrate animals: part 2: mammals (bats, hyenas, mice, rats, and skunks)

It appears that just as we humans express both our love for, and hatred against, certain groups within our species, our closest animal relatives, the mammals, also receive very selective admiration and detestation. Mammals such as those included in the ‘charismatic megafauna’ (big and attractive as shown in Figure 1) and the cute & cuddly species (Figure 2) make ideal aids for enlisting conservation support. In parallel, as noted in this paper, certain species of mammals are passionately hated and are often the subjects of extermination campaigns. These hated species are major concerns, and their intrusions into the artificial habitats of people provoke negative sentiments against the world of wildlife from which they originate. We humans wage war against our enemies and our impulse is to remove the objectionable species not just from our urbanized world, but everywhere. However, the most offensive nuisance mammals are superlative competitors and survivors and attempts to eliminate them require such extensive measures that, inevitably, many other species are endangered. What is needed is to find ways of living with these pests that minimize their harmful effects and a key first step is to learn to understand and respect their needs. Towards this goal, this review presents both the negative and positive aspects of our most detested mammalian pests emphasizing that, on balance, their benefits to humans exceeds their harm. Small (2019) explored how the most reviled species of invertebrate animals significantly but irrationally prejudice the public against wildlife and mitigate efforts to rehabilitate and conserve biodiversity. Part 1 of this paper (Small 2020) similarly carried out the same exercise for the most reviled species of ‘lower vertebrates’ (fish, frogs & toads, snakes, and birds). This follow-up review conducts a similar analysis of the most reviled mammals, which we humans arrogantly consider to be the ‘highest’ group of animals because we are the predominant member. Burgin et al. (2018) list 6400 species of living mammals which represent less than 10% of recognized vertebrate species and less than 0.5% of all animal species. Nevertheless, mammals overwhelmingly dominate conservation initiatives. By a considerable margin, the public supports conservation and rehabilitation of certain ‘charismatic’ mammals much more than any other species (Table 1). As with the previous examination of non-mammal vertebrates (Small 2019), the goal is to generate understanding of the economic values and useful roles of the world’s most disliked mammals in order to minimize the disrespect for biodiversity that they generate. The most despised mammals include bats, hyenas, mice, rats, and skunks (Figure 3). Notably, most of these disreputable mammals are no larger than a housecat whereas the most respected mammals are usually huge. Size is one of the characteristics that strongly determines whether a species is liked or disliked by humans (Small 2011, 2012) and even though most mammals are relatively small they are at least as vital to the welfare of the world as the giants. In relation to their relatively small number of species, mammals nevertheless play disproportionately large economic roles in human existence. Domesticated mammals, and in some regions wild mammals, provide food and hides. Livestock mammals furnish most of the world’s meat, milk, leather, and wool (as noted by Thornton 2019, there are currently 1.5 billion cows, 1 billion sheep, and 1 billion pigs in the world). Some species are important beasts of burden for riding, hauling, and ploughing. The dung and urine of livestock provide an agricultural fertilizer that is superior to today’s synthetic versions. Dogs and cats have become the world’s major pets, and dogs are also invaluable working assistants. (Unfortunately most of the approximately 1 billion dogs [Atitwa 2018] and about 600,000 cats [Migiro 2018] in the world are ‘free-range’ or feral,