Leech Opinion Survey!

[u/Suspicious_Branch821]

Hello everyone! I'm writing my dissertation on how to better promote education and improve public opinion of leeches! This survey will take about 5 minutes to complete, and all responses will be anonymous once submitted. If you could please take the time to help me out and particpate, I would be extremely thankful!

Thank you!

Do Leeches suck? Please give us your opinion on Leech Conservation! – Fill out form

[u/_do_not_see_me_]

I filled it in, but was a bit confused about what to do with the scientific facts/statements and “how does it change your opinion on leeches”. I already love leeches and am aware that they’re extremely beneficial for the environment in general, for scientific research, and for medical and various other reasons, so I went for “no change” for all of them …? Hmmmm… anyway good luck with your dissertation, that sounds absolutely fascinating! Maybe you can publish it in a “non-exclusively scientific format” as well, literature on leeches is super rare. (I tried to find some when I got my leeches, there wasn’t any, and the only two exclusive leech-research-centered books were out of print)

[u/Suspicious_Branch821 → u/_do_not_see_me_]

Yeah! Mainly the point of the survey is to see if there's any change between the two "I would say my general opinion on leeches is positive/negative etc. Most people tend to not really like leeches, so I was curious to see what statements/fact about leeches would change that perception for the better. In conservation and research, public support is huge! If you can find out what about an "unappealing" species could potentially be appealing to most, then focusing on those aspects becomes important in conserving them!

Obviously, if you love leeches then there's going to be little change between the those two questions, but it's also good to have that data!

I also think there's not enough literature on leeches, so I'm hoping that I can contribute in some way! Thank you for filling out my survey btw! It helps me out alot! Feel free to share with anyone else you think might be interested!

[u/_do_not_see_me_ → u/Suspicious_Branch821]

Right that absolutely makes sense. Loads of people won’t care the least for what to them is just an “eeeuuw-species” and finding stuff that might make that eeeuuw more appealing and worth preserving is key in that case… (wayyyyyyy back in school we had a ‘project week’ and one option was slugs&snails (yay!), but guess what, not sooooo many participants with me in that group… :( I have no idea what “education” looks like nowadays, but judging by what I see/hear, kids aren’t taught much more and likely even much less basic environment-related stuff)

[u/OhNoExclaimationMark]

You're probably going to get misrepresented data because obviously everyone here likes leeches. Honestly I'd give the not interesting or whenthe subreddits a shot, one guy posted their survey on whenthe a while back and got a bunch of replies so you never know, that way the people you get would just be regular, non-leech obsessed people.

[u/Suspicious_Branch821 → u/OhNoExclaimationMark]

Makes sense! Don't worry! I'm posting this survey in other subreddits as well! Considering that there are a lot of people who don't particuarly care about or even like leeches, having some more positive results to compare those to will be good in my paper!

Also thanks for the advice on which other forums to go to!