There aren’t that many people, even those who’re into animals (well at least most of them) who’re concerned about the lives of smaller, less charismatic species (let alone non-mammals). The uncharismatic species frequently get overlooked in favour of the showier animals, so while one could argue about closeness to humans it can still be unfair to animals that aren’t that charismatic. Not many people care about amphibians, even though they’re very endangered and risk becoming extinct.
Nor do many people care about reptiles. though I could be guilty of the same thing at some point. But the thing here is that there’s a bias against the less charismatic animals even by those in the know that risk being unfair to the less popular species of the animal kingdom. How many people care about a frog that risks being endangered by logging, habitat loss or killed by other animals? How many people ever give a damn about cloud rats?
The tendency to ignore these animals, even if they might be important to the environment especially when they do disperse seeds in the ground or something like that, can be wrong especially if these animals risk being extinct one way or another but they keep on getting ignored in favour of the more charismatic animals that it’s wrong. If only more people cared about them, we could preserve more species this way if only we stopped ignoring the rodents and frogs among us.
fynm 