Big mammals in Malaysia don't get much love

A 2017 photo of elephants raiding a village farm in Sukau, Sabah. As elephants lose their habitats, they are coming into conflict with humans and gaining a bad redputation. — JAPAR USOF

We love the cute, shy tapir but we have less love for big elephants that stomp through villages and scarily large-toothed and clawed tigers.

Scientifically, this is called a taxonomic bias: People have more tolerance for the not-so-aggressive tapirs and less for potentially more dangerous elephants, and even less for tigers, a study has found.