In 2011, Zoomarine Portugal’s education team posed a seemingly simple question: what do our visitors really know about sharks? This modest inquiry initiated what would become a decade-long journey, culminating in something we never imagined at the time, the creation of the first IUCN SSC Center for Species Survival focused specifically on behavioral change for conservation.
The CSS Behaviour Change is a specialized center hosted by Zoomarine Portugal that serves as a global hub for integrating behavioural sciences into conservation practice. The center works by bridging the gap between behavioural science and conservation practice through developing research methods, building practitioner capacity, and providing evidence-based policy recommendations, with a particular focus on marine fauna conservation.
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With the benefit of hindsight, we can now identify distinct evolutionary phases in our work, even though they weren’t consciously planned. Each phase built organically upon previous learning, demonstrating how zoological institutions can strategically develop research capabilities that transform conservation practice.
In the early years after that first question, our curiosity continued to grow — good questions, after all, are like cherries, as the old Portuguese saying goes: you never eat just one.
We (the Zoomarine Team) began with basic knowledge assessments before developing more sophisticated experimental approaches. Initially, we focused on testing how visual elements influenced conservation fundraising. One of our first revelations came when studying the effects of normative messages to reduce waste. We discovered that minimal adjustments in communication could produce behavioral changes that traditional educational approaches had failed to achieve, despite years of implementation. As we accumulated experience, we naturally progressed into exploring other disciplines, particularly social psychology applied to conservation contexts (e.g., Salazar et al., 2021a,b; Neves et al., 2024, 2025).
By introducing theoretical frameworks such as social representations and the stereotype content model into our research (e.g., Neves et al., 2021; 2022a), we realized we weren’t just measuring what people knew about species or how they interpreted and responded to social norms (e.g., Salazar et al., 2021a). We were examining how psychological dimensions like perceived warmth and competence influenced conservation attitudes and behaviors (Neves et al., 2022b). This deeper understanding of the psychological mechanisms underlying people’s relationships with wildlife naturally led us beyond simply assessing knowledge to proactively designing targeted interventions. We had evolved from asking “what do people know?” to “how can we strategically influence what they feel and do?” — thus transforming from educators into designers of psychological interventions for conservation.
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As our research sophistication grew, so did our ambition. We expanded our studies to numerous other species and began examining deeper psychological pathways: how perceived warmth can be influenced to improve attitudes toward traditionally feared animals (Neves et al., 2023a), how subtle linguistic features like grammatical gender could shape animal stereotypes and conservation support (Neves et al., 2023b), how emotional resonance drives concern for conservation (Neves et al., 2025), and how salience and loss aversion can be leveraged in real-world conservation messaging (Neves et al., submitted).
Throughout this philosophical and operational progression, we established a strategic partnership with the IUCN SSC CEC Behaviour Change Taskforce, led by Dr. Diogo Veríssimo. This collaboration allowed us to allocate a full-time programme officer to support the initiative. Through regular engagement with a group of behaviour change experts, it became natural to establish a formal partnership with the SSC, creating what is now the IUCN SSC CSS Behaviour Change — a dedicated center functioning as a global hub for integrating behavioral sciences into conservation practice.
For zoological institutions and conservation organizations looking to enhance their impact, our decade-long evolution offers a modest yet practical roadmap. The journey from visitor surveys to a global conservation hub wasn’t planned from the beginning — it emerged organically through persistent curiosity about how human psychology shapes conservation outcomes. By systematically building research capacity and embracing behavioral science, similar institutions can transform themselves from conservation educators into catalysts for meaningful behavioral change.
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About the author: João Neves is a conservation biologist and researcher in conservation psychology. His work examines how psychological quirks – like why people love dolphins but fear sharks – often sabotage conservation efforts. As Director of Science and Conservation at Zoomarine Portugal and coordinator of the Center for Species Survival on Behaviour Change, he proves daily that the most dangerous predators aren’t sharks… they’re stereotypes. More information at: www.linkedin.com/in/joaopcneves
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References
- Salazar, G., Neves, J., Alves, V., Silva, B., Giger, J. C., & Veríssimo, D. (2021a). The effectiveness and efficiency of using normative messages to reduce waste: A real world experiment. PloS one, 16(12), e0261734.
- Salazar, G., Neves, J., Alves, V., Silva, B., & Veríssimo, D. (2021b). Picturing donations: Do images influence conservation fundraising?. Plos one, 16(6), e0251882.
- Neves, J., Giger, J. C., Piçarra, N., Alves, V., & Almeida, J. (2021). Social representations of sharks, perceived communality, and attitudinal and behavioral tendencies towards their conservation: An exploratory sequential mixed approach. Marine Policy, 132, 104660.
- Neves, J., Giger, J. C., Alves, V., & Almeida, J. (2022a). The social representations of zoo goers toward crocodiles and turtles: Structural analysis and implications for conservation. Social Sciences, 11(12), 571.
- Neves, J., Pestana, J., & Giger, J. C. (2022b). Applying the Stereotype Content Model (SCM) and BIAS Map to understand attitudinal and behavioral tendencies toward the conservation of sharks. Anthrozoös, 35(3), 371-391.
- Neves, J., Giger, J. C., Alves, V., & Soares, N. (2023a). Focusing on social behaviors: Improving the perceived warmth of sharks in an aquarium setting. Animals, 13(15), 2455.
- Neves, J., Costa, I., Oliveira, J., Silva, B., & Maia, J. (2023b). Can gender nouns influence the stereotypes of animals?. Animals, 13(16), 2604.
- Neves, J., Giger, J. C., Oliveira, J., Pacheco, L., Gonçalves, G., Silva, A. A., & Costa, I. (2024). Psychological Pathways to Ocean Conservation: A Study of Marine Mammal Park Visitors. Journal of Zoological and Botanical Gardens, 5(3), 465-480.
- Neves, J., Teixeira, R., Conceição, M., Araújo, T., Batista, M., Santos, E., … & Guerreiro, R. (2025). The Role of Salience and Emotional Resonance in Cultivating Conservation Caring Among Zoo Visitors. Anthrozoös, 38(2), 233-251.
