While walking through Brooklyn last week, I saw an advertisement for the World Wide Fund for Nature encouraging those passing by to donate to help save the world’s panda population. The photo of the panda in the ad was especially endearing. When I went home, I visited the organization’s website. The WWF’s site has a gift center where patrons can donate money to adopt a species. The featured animals are tigers, sloths, polar bears, elephants and pandas. Browsing through the site, it is striking how fortunate these animals were to have been born cute in some way. I began to wonder how the WWF fundraises for endangered insects and other species that are not as beautiful, such as bees or spiders. It turns out the WWF does not deal with these animals at all.

The species that the WWF seeks to protect are marine animals, primates and big cats, and it seems too idealistic that endangered species are all extremely popular among the general public. The site features no information about honeybees, which have had their population decrease by 30 percent in the last 10 years. It has been widely studied that the decrease in bee populations has been dramatic, and will likely have far-reaching consequences. According to the Department of Agriculture, bees lead to increases in crop value by $15 billion each year, and “about one mouthful in three in our diet directly or indirectly benefits from honeybee pollination.”

Knowing this information, why does the WWF not allocate resources to save bee populations? They are, after all, a keystone species. The WWF does not explain on its website how it selects the animals it tries to save, but generally features the cute mammals in its campaigns.

The WWF’s neglect of unconventional but important animals runs disconcertingly deep. Their Living Planet Report, a biannual publication that attempts to analyze the health of the Earth, does not even consider insects. The report claims “all terrestrial and freshwater species populations can be assigned to one of five major biogeographic realms,” which are fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. There is no mention in the report of insect populations, despite the fact that insects are the most diverse animal group on Earth and constitute more than half of all living species.

The issue here is simple: the WWF needs to demonstrate less aesthetic bias in the animals they support and include insects and other less striking animals in their funding. Importance should trump cuteness.

A version of this article appeared in the Tuesday, Oct. 7 print edition. Email Zarif Adnan at [email protected].