Dodo dilemmas: Conflicting ethical loyalties in conservation social science research

In a time of deepening social and ecological crises, the question research ethics is more pertinent than ever. Our intervention grapples with specific personal, ethical, methodological challenges that arise at interface conservation science. We expose these through figure Chris, fictional anonymised composite our fraught diverse fieldwork experiences in Australia, Burma, Indonesian Borneo, Namibia, Vanuatu. Fundamentally, we explore as series contested loyalties: loyalties to different human non-human participants, commitments academic rigour, project wildlife itself, while reckoning conservation's spotted (neo)colonial past. struggles reflections illustrate, first, practical do not predetermine forms reciprocity. Second, need choose concealments carefully follow principle doing harm, also have responsibility reveal environmental injustices. Third, must acknowledge researchers are complicit practices violence exclusion suffuse conservation. Finally, given how responsibilities move researcher beyond position innocence or neutrality, institutions should adjust their support. This highlights for greater openness about emerging from conflicting disciplinary loyalties, order facilitate cross-disciplinary understanding. Active engagement ethical questions collaborative dialogue-based fora, both before after fieldwork, would enable learning consequently transform practices.