ConservationBytes.com

Anyone who reads CB.com knows that I like to inject a bit of humour into my (often gloomy) messages. Sniggering, chortling, groaning and outright guffawing are useful ways to deal with the depressing topics conservation scientists examine every day. This is why I started the ‘Cartoon of the Week’ series, and now I have a compendium of quite a few biodiversity-related cartoons. Cartoons can also serve as wonderfully effective political tools if they manage to encapsulate the preposterousness of bad policies, navel-gazing politicians or Earth-buggering corporate tycoons. A good cartoon can be far more effective at transmitting a deep and complex message to a wide audience than most scientific articles.

Who are these gifted artists that bring together wit, humour and hard environmental truths into something that practically every scientist wants to include in conference presentations? I am inspired by some of these people, as I’m sure are many of you, so I decided to put together a little list of some of today’s better biodiversity cartoonists.

In no particular order of fame, relevance, focus on biodiversity, productivity or otherwise, I present to you my list of 10 great biodiversity cartoonists:

• I suspect not many living outside of Australia would be familiar with the silly, yet extremely witty cartoons by First Dog on the Moon (also known as Andrew Marlton). I first came across this Melbournian when he was working for the newspaper Crikey, although he recently joined The Guardian Australia. He’s by no means what one would call an ‘environmental’ cartoonist, but there is a fair dose of (mainly Australian) biodiversity content in his cartoons. He is a self-entitled ‘marsupialist’, whatever that means (marsupial fetish, I think). I’ve even had the immense honour of having my own work immortalised in cartoon by this wonderful cartoonist.

© First Dog on the Moon

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