He spends his remaining days lolling around, oblivious to his fate. Faced with an upcoming death sentence, his only crime is that he has tested positive for an infectious disease. Meanwhile, a controversial government agency has a warrant for his destruction which could be executed at any moment. Pleas from his loving family are ignored as hundreds of thousands of well-wishers and activists rally to his defence.
This is Geronimo the alpaca. It’s the fluffy animal caught at the centre of a lengthy legal battle, thrust across the headlines, capturing the imagination of Britain. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has ordered the animal to be put down after he twice tested positive for bovine tuberculosis. It’s the same respiratory disease which means tens of thousands of badgers are culled every year, in order to prevent its spread to cattle.
Yet this one alpaca has had his furry face splashed across tabloid front pages, and has even sparked protests at Downing Street. Why? Blame our own biological drivers. “If an animal looks like a baby we swoon,” explains Robin Dunbar, anthropologist and emeritus professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford. “It’s features like big eyes and a high forehead, meaning the eyes are in the centre of the face. You can see this in the design of teddy bear faces. They started out very bear-like, then became baby-like in shape over time.”
When we perceive something as ‘cute,’ the pituitary gland, at the base of the brain, releases a bump of feel-good chemicals. Dopamine courses through the body. Oxytocin, crucial in establishing a strong parental bond, rushes through the bloodstream. Our pupils dilate from the surge of hormones and we're suddenly enraptured by a warm, cuddly feeling. It’s why Hollywood has turned cuteness into an art form.
But be it Baby Yoda or an extra-fluffy South American camelid, it’s simply our nurturing response kicking in. “It’s the maternal instinct,” says Dunbar. “It’s why women are much more attached to their pets than men.” An animal’s sociability deepens this effect, which is why so many of us feel a kinship with dogs – and why we tune into a 24-hour live stream of eight-year-old Geronimo plodding around his farm near Bristol. “Alpacas aren’t always noted for good behaviour, but they are intensely social,” Dunbar says.
The instinct to nurture varies from person to person. But it comes back to evolution. “Ultimately, a maternal instinct is much more crucial than a paternal one,” Dunbar explains. “Human babies are born 12 months premature compared to babies of other apes. They have an utter lack of responsiveness over the first year and mothers have the huge burden of lactation. It means something is needed to ensure the mother keeps coming back to tend to the baby.”
In other words, if babies weren’t cute they wouldn’t survive. And Geronimo’s features – big eyes; large head compared to body size; soft, fuzzy textures – provide similar visual cues. We see pictures of the alpaca and we have a biological urge to protect him like he’s our own offspring.
It’s then that the rational, decision-making part of the brain – the prefrontal cortex – becomes hijacked. Instead, the brain’s emotional centre, the amygdala, takes the steering wheel, directing our thoughts away from logic and towards desire: we want to save Geronimo. “One of the most striking things is that I’d love for him to live,” says Grace Lordan, associate professor in behavioural science at London School of Economics and author of Think Big. “But if I take a step back and be objective about it, it shows us that narrative will always trump data.”
Even when we employ logic and rational thought, we’re vulnerable to the subconscious and the mental shortcuts we take in order to interpret the world around us. For example, in behavioural science, there’s the identifiable victim effect. “Give him a face, a story, a family who will miss him dearly, and the narrative grabs people,” Lordan explains. “In the backdrop to the Geronimo story are the other animals, farmers and cattle who have suffered without having that sexy narrative driving their story.”
The identifiable victim effect is a psychological tendency often harnessed by charities. “Research has shown that a picture of devastation – one where the animal is killed – is the biggest emotional lever,” Lordan says. When that lever is pulled, and the amygdala seizes control of our thinking, we’re more likely to take drastic action. “We may not have footage of Geronimo hurt, but we have the mental picture,” explains Lordan. “It’s anticipated loss aversion: people are imagining a cute animal that’s going to suffer.”
It explains why a petition to save one alpaca has garnered nearly 150,000 signatures. On the other hand, it’s estimated that 280,000 badgers will be culled by 2025. Likewise, tens of thousands of deer are mass killed every year in order to rein in populations. Neither case has received the same sort of intense, widespread attention reserved for Geronimo. “It’s an example of psychological numbing,” explains Joan Harvey, a chartered psychologist at Newcastle University. “Even if you were to see ten cute things at the same time, the effect is somewhat blunted.”
We're psychologically hardwired to leap to the defence of one dying animal yet, when more are in desperate need, our compassion fades. “If there are countless incidents of a crisis we feel overwhelmed – we become desensitised,” Harvey says. “If you show one person, name them, and ask for help, you’re more likely to spur action. We become sympathetic towards a lovely, fluffy animal with an attractive face and a name – it makes it easier to put up a fight.”
And Geronimo’s name certainly fits the narrative. After all, he’s named after a legendary Native American leader who took on the might of the US military. As a quirk of fate, he finally surrendered to troops on September 4 – the last date that the death warrant of Geronimo the alpaca can be carried out. “It gives the story a hero interpretation,” reasons Lordan. “If an alpaca had a plain name, the story wouldn’t be as interesting. It’s like with Disney characters, they make sure they give them a name that helps hook in the imagination.”
A great underdog story, as told by the persuasive voice of the media, also plays into human psychology. “You have Geronimo’s owner, one farmer, taking on the ‘big bad villain’ of Defra,” says Harvey. “Then you have the British people rallying to the cause. We may put up with factory farming, but we like to think of ourselves as animal lovers – we don’t want to see any of them hurt.”
Of course, it helps when so many find the central character in the story so cute: Geronimo’s fluffy features pull at our collective heartstrings. “As humans, we think we behave rationally but we get overtaken by emotions,” Lordan says. “We want to be part of the story and save the alpaca. The cuteness has dragged me in, I think ‘Couldn’t they just test him again?’ The rational says one thing, but our emotions say another.”
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
