By Trevor Oertel – Sustainable Use Coalition of Southern Africa (SUCo-SA)

When animal rightism trips over its own emotive exaggerations, the result is predictable, a flood of outrage, a rush of donations, and another step away from factual, science-based conservation.

A recent example comes from World Animal Protection (WAP), which shared a post on Facebook suggesting that people “boil pangolins alive.” The imagery was ghastly, but so is the manipulation behind it. Why stop there? Why not add “eviscerate” or “flay” for maximum effect?

The truth is that no one engaged in the illegal trade of pangolins is boiling them alive. The animals are already dead unless “suffocated” means something else before being cooked or dried for illegal sale. The purpose of such dramatization is not awareness or education. It’s emotional exploitation engineered to shock, sadden, and extract money from a horrified public.

This pattern is nothing new. For decades, animal rights organizations have thrived on manufacturing moral panic. Their fundraising model depends on the same formula: create a vivid image of unimaginable cruelty, present it as widespread, and frame themselves as the only moral saviors who can stop it, for a donation, of course.

We’ve seen it all before. The story that fur animals are skinned alive to stop “hair slip.” The claim that donkeys are routinely bludgeoned with a hammer and skinned alive for “Ejiao.” The insistence that dogs are boiled alive as part of cultural tradition.

While isolated acts of cruelty do occur and deserve condemnation, the sweeping generalizations used in these campaigns are gross distortions. They are carefully crafted to override rational thought and replace it with raw emotion.

This fixation with horror is not about protecting animals. It’s about sustaining a revenue stream. Emotional imagery guarantees viral traction, international outrage, and generous donations from people too repulsed to question the facts. The result is a public that feels morally righteous, and an animal rights industry that grows richer, while actual conservation work suffers.

The Sustainable Use Coalition of Southern Africa (SUCo-SA) represents organizations, communities, and individuals across the region who believe that real conservation is grounded in science, management, and people. We work to protect wildlife through responsible, regulated, and sustainable use. These are the same principle that helped restore African wildlife populations from near collapse over the last century.

Yet the same animal rights groups that flood social media with emotive fabrications are the first to campaign against these proven models. They oppose hunting, wildlife trade and utilisation in spite of science supporting these activities when practiced sustainably because outrage sells better than reason. They are quick to condemn Africa’s conservation systems while offering no viable alternative to fund land management, protect habitats, or compensate rural communities who live alongside wildlife.

This is where the danger lies. When Western activists, through sheer emotional manipulation, succeed in pressuring governments and corporations to impose bans on wildlife use, they undermine the very systems that protect wildlife. They strip African communities of income, destroy incentives to conserve wildlife, and create the perfect conditions for increased poaching and habitat conversion.

The fixation on horror stories like “boiling pangolins alive” is not just dishonest, it’s destructive. It fuels bad policy, distorts public understanding, and insults African conservation expertise. It’s a form of emotive colonialism! A campaign built on feelings rather than facts, imposing Western moral theatrics onto African realities.

Real conservation is complex. It’s not a social media spectacle; it’s an ongoing negotiation between people, wildlife, and land. It requires funding, management, regulation, and community participation, none of which fit neatly into a tear-jerking Facebook post.

Animal rights organizations like World Animal Protection, Humane World For Animals, Born Free or PETA have mastered the art of moral marketing. But conservationists, especially in Africa, must now master the art of exposing it. Because behind the sanctimony and slogans lies a deeply cynical truth, this movement needs suffering to survive even if it has to invent it.

Yes, there are sick and twisted individuals in the world, the occasional abuser, the criminal poacher, the trafficker. But there is also sickness in exploiting that suffering to manipulate good people into believing that outrage equals conservation.

The next time an animal rights group presents another grotesque image demanding your emotional reaction, pause and ask yourself: Is this helping animals, or is it helping a narrative?
In Africa, we know the difference.