Just out in Biodiversity and Conservation is a paper entitled “Anthropomorphized species as tools for conservation: utility beyond prosocial, intelligent and suffering species” on the uses of anthropomorphism in conservation that I had the great pleasure of co-authoring.
This article dwells on how making a species more human-like can help get conservation related messages across more easily but also discusses some of the problems around portraying animals like people.
Find the Pdf here!