The black-and-white image appears to show an orangutan cradling endangered leopard cubs in Malaysia’s Sabah state, but fact-checkers have identified it as fake.

The image is part of a broader trend of synthetic wildlife visuals, including false images showing an elephant climbing a tree to escape flooding in Myanmar and a pink dolphin leaping from the water in the Philippines.

Such images are often paired with heartwarming anecdotes and circulated in multiple languages on platforms including Facebook, TikTok and X.

Experts warn that hyper-realistic images depicting wild animals behaving like pets or humans can distort public perceptions and encourage unsafe interactions with wildlife.

“This misunderstanding can lead people to approach animals too closely or interact with them in unsafe ways,” Jose Guerrero-Casado, a zoology professor at Spain’s University of Cordoba, said.

He cited a widely reported incident in China’s northwest Xinjiang region in January, where a woman was attacked by a rare snow leopard after trying to get closer for a photo.

China’s forestry department said it stepped up patrols following the incident and warned the public to maintain a safe distance when encountering wild animals.

Conservationists also warn that portraying wild animals as cute or cuddly can make it harder for social media users to distinguish real content from fabricated material and could fuel wildlife exploitation.

They increase demand for certain species “to be used in the tourism industry as photo props, exploited to make social media content or to be kept as pets,” said Chris Lewis, a researcher at the international wildlife charity Born Free.

While such visuals could encourage some people to support animal protection, “the negative impacts outweigh that completely,” said Jenny Roberts of conservation group WWF.

“People could get hurt,” she said.

WWF uses real images in its fundraising efforts, but Roberts said fake content online can make people skeptical even of extraordinary genuine wildlife images.

“When you do have something remarkable, people question it,” Roberts said, recounting an incident in which a camera trap operated by her charity captured a tiger with five cubs in China.

She said such footage had never previously been filmed in the East Asian country.

“But when we put the content out there, we were questioned on social media: ’Is this AI-generated?’”

A September study published in the journal Conservation Biology and co-authored by Guerrero-Casado concluded that the rapid spread of AI misinformation and its potential to harm environmental efforts is a “major threat” to society.

The researchers also highlighted concerns that AI-generated images could affect people's ability to identify species and create misunderstandings about the abundance and distribution of wildlife.

Scientists frequently use data from citizen science platforms that accept wildlife photographs and recordings submitted by users.

AI generation and manipulation could compromise such research, several experts warned in a recent commentary in the journal Nature.

They called for stronger authentication of submissions and greater education for users about the risks of manipulating images and recordings.

Meanwhile, Meta, Facebook’s parent company, and TikTok require users to label realistic visuals generated or significantly altered using AI.

Both companies also say their platforms have tools that automatically label AI-generated content.

However, fact-checkers have identified multiple wildlife posts without clear labels, including posts whose captions already acknowledged that the images were fake.

Meta and TikTok pay AFP to fact-check posts containing potentially false information.

“Conservation depends on a well-informed society that understands the ecological and conservation needs of wild species,” Guerrero-Casado said.

“AI-generated fake content does not contribute to this goal.”