{"slug": "ai-generated-wildlife-images-are-endangering-animals-and-people-experts-warn", "title": "AI-generated wildlife images are endangering animals and people, experts warn", "summary": "AI-generated wildlife images are endangering animals and people, experts warn, as fact-checkers debunk scores of synthetic visuals circulating on social media. A September study in Conservation Biology, co-authored by Jose Guerrero-Casado of Spain's University of Cordoba, concluded that rapid spread of AI misinformation is a 'major threat' to society, and experts warn hyper-realistic visuals can distort public perceptions and lead to unsafe interactions with wildlife.", "body_md": "KUALA LUMPUR – The black-and-white image appears to show the unlikeliest of interactions: an orangutan cradling endangered leopard cubs deep in the jungles of Malaysia’s Sabah state.\n\nBut the viral image is not just unlikely, it is fake, part of a trend of wildlife images generated by artificial intelligence that experts warn endanger animals and people.\n\nFact-checkers have debunked scores of similar synthetic visuals, from an elephant climbing a tree to escape flooding in Myanmar to a pink dolphin leaping out of water in the Philippines.\n\nThe images are often accompanied by heartwarming anecdotes and have circulated widely in multiple languages on platforms such as Facebook, TikTok and X.\n\nThey may seem more like feel-good fiction than dangerous misinformation, but experts warn hyper-realistic visuals of wild animals behaving like pets, or even like humans, can distort public perceptions of wildlife and harm conservation efforts.\n\n“This misunderstanding can lead people to approach animals too closely or interact with them in unsafe ways,” Jose Guerrero-Casado, a zoology professor at Spain’s University of Cordoba, said.\n\nHe cited a widely reported incident in China’s northwest Xinjiang region in January, where a woman was attacked by a rare snow leopard after trying to get closer for a photo.\n\nChina’s forestry department said it stepped up patrols after the incident and warned the public to maintain a safe distance when encountering wild animals.\n\nConservationists say AI visuals portraying wild animals as cute or cuddly make it harder for social media users to discern what is real and can fuel exploitation.\n\nThey increase demand for certain species “to be used in the tourism industry as photo props, exploited to make social media content or to be kept as pets,” said Chris Lewis, a researcher at the international wildlife charity Born Free.\n\nAnd while the visuals could encourage some people to support animal protection, “the negative impacts outweigh that completely,” said Jenny Roberts of conservation group WWF.\n\n“People could get hurt,” she said.\n\nWWF uses real images for its fundraising efforts, but fake content online desensitizes people to even the most incredible original visuals, she said.\n\n“When you do have something remarkable, people question it,” Roberts said, recounting an incident in which a camera trap set up by her charity captured a tiger with five cubs in China.\n\nSuch footage had never been filmed before in the East Asian country, she said.\n\n“But when we put the content out there, we were questioned on social media: ’Is this AI-generated?’”\n\n### ‘Major threat’\n\nA September study in the journal Conservation Biology, co-authored by Guerrero-Casado, concluded that the rapid spread of AI misinformation and its potential to harm environmental efforts is a “major threat” to society.\n\nThe researchers highlighted another challenge for those working in conservation: AI images “could affect the ability of people to identify species” and cause misunderstandings about the abundance and distribution of wildlife.\n\nScientists often mine data from citizen science platforms that accept photos and recordings of wildlife submitted by users.\n\nBut AI generation and manipulation could lead to flawed research, several experts warned in a recent commentary in the journal Nature.\n\nThey called for more robust authentication of submissions, and education of users about the risks of manipulating images and recordings.\n\nMeta, Facebook’s parent company, and TikTok require users to label realistic visuals that have been generated or significantly altered using AI. They also say their platforms have tools that automatically label content as AI-generated.\n\nHowever, fact-checkers spotted multiple wildlife posts without clear labels — even when users had already said in their captions that they were fake.\n\nMeta and TikTok pay AFP to fact-check posts with potentially false information.\n\n“Conservation depends on a well-informed society that understands the ecological and conservation needs of wild species,” Guerrero-Casado said.\n\n“AI-generated fake content does not contribute to this goal.”", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-generated-wildlife-images-are-endangering-animals-and-people-experts-warn", "canonical_source": "https://www.japantimes.co.jp/environment/2026/08/17/wildlife/conservationists-ai-wildlife-visuals/", "published_at": "2026-08-17 08:35:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-17 08:40:49.080548+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["generative-ai", "ai-ethics", "ai-policy"], "entities": ["Jose Guerrero-Casado", "University of Cordoba", "Born Free", "Chris Lewis", "WWF", "Jenny Roberts", "Meta", "TikTok"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-generated-wildlife-images-are-endangering-animals-and-people-experts-warn", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-generated-wildlife-images-are-endangering-animals-and-people-experts-warn.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-generated-wildlife-images-are-endangering-animals-and-people-experts-warn.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-generated-wildlife-images-are-endangering-animals-and-people-experts-warn.jsonld"}}