Welcome to the Risk Zoo!
The Risk Zoo is created, drawn, and written by Yolanda C Lin. Last updated Dec 1, 2020.
Animal kingdom metaphors are often invoked in the disaster risk world for their accessibility and familiarity when discussing difficult or uncomfortable topics. However, as a disaster risk researcher, I was finding a lot of animal metaphors. So many, in fact, that I was having trouble keeping track. The Risk Zoo is my effort of map out the metaphors I have come across (so far). And, while there are a number of other Risk Zoo/Animal Kingdom metaphor lists out there (many cited below), but I wanted something more visual and complete. Let me know if I missed your favorite animal kingdom risk metaphor! I am still in the process of adding examples, so I’d also love to hear from you if you have an event to suggest for a particular animal metaphor.
The Risk Zoo map encodes four parameters:
- Probability: West = more likely, East = less likely
- Impact: North = higher consequences, South = lower consequences
- Visibility of hazard: Size of tree
- Event onset: Length of grass
Find a description of each animal below in the animal profiles.
You can download the Risk Zoo map! It comes in both tall (shown here) and wide formats. Please credit the visualization as
Yolanda C. Lin (2020). The Risk Zoo. Available at: datartathon.com/theriskzoo/
Animal profiles
Cockroaches
I’ll be honest. This is mentioned in a risk management metaphor list, but I haven’t been able to find a more definitve definition anywhere else. Let me know if you have a good reference to add to the list!
My take on this metaphor: Cockroaches represent events that are certain because they are pervasively present and difficult to extinguish. Because impacts are low, they are dealt with one-by-one and don’t generally overwhelm the systems or people that they affect. But because impacts are low, effort for preventative or mitigating actions are not prioritized and these events remain frequent and pervasive.
Keep reading
Open Risk Manual’s risk management metaphor list mentions cochroaches in passing, but that’s all I’ve been able to find that specifically links cockroaches and riskBen Carlson in this blog post on Market Earthquakes makes the comparison to our natural behavior in complex systems: just run the other way!
White Elephant
White elephant events are known events that we fail to act against (see: Ostrich Paradox, gray rhino). This is based on the classic “elephant in the room” saying. These are big problems that we could do something about, but a combination of availability bias, optimism bias, confirmation bias, groupthink, mypoia, and status quo bias can lead potential efforts astray.
Keep reading
An Animal Kingdom of Disruptive RisksWhite Swan
A white swan describes an event that is known. It is also highly certain, with occurrence that is well understood, and has a resulting impact can be estimated easily. In short, we expect this, we understand it, we should be equipped and prepared for these kinds of events.
Keep reading
Greg Hutchins breaks down his thoughts on Black Swans, Grey Swans, White Swans in a blog post.
800-lb Gorilla
Question: Where does the 800-lb gorilla sit in a room?
Answer: Anywhere it wants!
This metaphor is used to describe existing forces (people, businesses, governments) that can dominate the culture around them and the hands of others because of their influence and power. How does this relate to disaster risk? For example, efforts for disaster risk reduction may be supported by some (eg, at the community level), but not supported by the 800-lb gorillas of government policy or financial instruments, and can therefore prevent change from taking place. Or it could refer to the balance of power between relief organizations, such as global organizations who may parachute in for relief efforts and leave soon after, as compared to local non-profits who have long-established and continuing ties with the community that is experiencing a disaster.
Keep reading
Heidi Stevens’ The 800-pound grammar gorilla in the Chicago Tribune breaks down the idiom and some new varieties on the original phraseGray Rhino
As described in Michele Wucker’s book, The Gray Rhino: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore: “A ‘gray rhino’ is a highly probable, high impact yet neglected threat: kin to both the elephant in the room and the improbable and unforeseeable black swan. Gray rhinos are not random surprises, but occur after a series of warnings and visible evidence.” It is a dangerous combination of a known, probable, willfully unseen, and therefore high impact event.
Keep reading
The Gray Rhino: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore by Michele Wucker (2016)Head to the Gray Rhino website for more from Wucker.
Boiling Frog
The boiling frog is a familiar metaphor about a frog that is slowly heated over time until it boils to death. The boiling frog represents risks that change incrementally in time, but those changes are not taken seriously until it is too late. Apparently, this is not true for frogs (they will jump out!), but it is highly relevant to disaster risk, especially slower onset risks such as climate change. It is also applicable to describe the change in risk when considering changes in vulnerability (think U.S. highway bridges) or exposure (such as increased exposure from growing populations).
Keep reading
Nick Obradovich and Frances Moore’s article The data is in. Frogs don’t boil. But we might. in the Washington Post on how rapidly people in the U.S. adapt to “new normals” when it comes to changing temperatures.
Sharpe, Simon. 2019. “Telling the Boiling Frog What He Needs to Know: Why Climate Change Risks Should Be Plotted as Probability over Time.” Geoscience Communication 2 (1): 95–100. https://doi.org/10.5194/gc-2-95-2019.
Ostrich paradox (or effect)
Ostriches are fabled to bury their heads in the sand when dangers comes. While this behavior is not actually true for ostriches, this widely-used saying is also a common disaster risk metaphor used to illustrate how humans have difficulty dealing with looming disaster risk. This is also commonly used in the behavioral finance realm.
Keep reading
Robert Meywer and Howard Kunreuther’s book, The ostrich paradox: Why we underpreapre for disasters (2017)Karlsson, N., Loewenstein, G. & Seppi, D. The ostrich effect: Selective attention to information. J Risk Uncertain 38, 95–115 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11166-009-9060-6
Butterfly Effect
“Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?” The location of the butterfly, the consequence of its action, and the location of the consequence vary, but the idea that small changes in the state of a complex systems can result in significant differences somewhere else, sometime later is the thread that holds this metaphor together.Keep reading
“Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?” An early appearance of the metaphor, as related to Edward Lorenz’s work, to describe this effectWeather and Chaos: The Work of Edward N. Lorenz is a (free!) documentary that explains the “butterfly effect” in context of Lorenz’s work.
Dragon King
A Dragon King is widely used metaphor for events that are both extremely large in size or consequence, and also unique in origin relative to other events from the same system. Dragon king theory was developed by Dider Sornette, and the main hypothesis is that many extreme events are in fact Dragon Kings rather than Black Swans in that they may be predictable in advance, not only in hindsight. They are born from mechanisms such as postive feedback, tipping points, and phase transitions, and are often found in nonlinear or complex systems. The occurrence of these events can help reveal underlying, hidden organizing principles, and a dynamic, rather than static, approach is needed to monitor these risks.
Keep reading
Sornette, Didier. 2009. “Dragon-Kings, Black Swans and the Prediction of Crises.” ArXiv:0907.4290.More on this distinction: ‘Black Swans’ or ‘Dragon Kings’?
Black Swan
Perhaps one of the most widely used terms in the field right now, Black Swans were popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb through his Black Swan Theory. In his definition, Black Swans events have the following characteristics:
- The event is a surprise (to the observer).
- The event has a major effect.
- After the first recorded instance of the event, it can be rationalized by hindsight, as if it could have been expected; that is, the relevant data were available but unaccounted for in risk mitigation programs. This also applies to individuals’ personal perceptions of these events.
However, events must be a surprise, so even though events like COVID-19 have been globally catastrophic, the author insists this cannot be called Black Swan since it is statistically consistent with expectations. However, given that the definition is such that the event is a surprise to the observer, it is justifiable that the occurance of a global pandemic in 2020 was indeed a black swan to some individuals, if not to experts.
Keep reading
Taleb’s book, The black swan: The impact of the highly improbable (2007).An interesting application to help you explore data and find black swan events
Black Elephant
A black elephant is “a cross between a Black Swan (an unlikely, unexpected event with enormous ramifications) and the “elephant in the room” (a problem that is visible to everyone, yet no one still wants to address it) even though we know that one day it will have vast, black-swan-like consequences," as reported by Thomas Friedman (who heard it from Adam Sweidan, who heard it from Dougald Hine. I think that’s the end of the chain, but let me know if you know more about the Black Elephant’s origins!).
Keep reading
Thomas Friedman’s Stampeding Black Elephants, Nov 22, 2014.Hunting Black Swans and taming Black elephants: governance in a complex world: A video of a talk by Singaporean Civil Servant Peter Ho
White Leopard
What is a white leopard risk? “The White Leopard is a stealthy creature that stays hidden through effective camouflage. Its risk is out in the market wilderness. You know it exists but it remains hidden until it is almost too late. It is not a true unknown, but something that could be in plain sight if only you knew how to identify the risk,” (Mark Rzepczynski, 2019) We’re not necessarily willfully ignoring them like we are with Black Elephants or Gray Rhinos, but we also haven’t trained ourselves to see them.
Keep reading
An Animal Kingdom of Different Risks - White Leopards, Grey Rhinos, and Black Swans. June 27, 2019.White Whale
White whales have long been recognized as being extremely rare. and white whales events are a metaphor for very low probability events that are known to exist. Of course, white whales are rich with metaphor (e.g., Moby Dick), but for the disaster risk conversation, it is used as a foil to the black Swan event that is symbolic of an event that is completely surprising.
Black Turkey
A close relative of the Gray Rhino and Black Elephant, the Black Turkey is “an event that is everywhere in the data—it happens all the time—but to which one is willfully blind,” as described by Laurence B. Siegel who coined the term in his 2010 paper about the 2008 financial crash.
Keep reading
Laurence B. Siegel (2010) Black Swan or Black Turkey? The State of Economic Knowledge and the Crash of 2007–2009, Financial Analysts Journal, 66:4, 6-10, DOI: 10.2469/faj.v66.n4.4Prior Market Crashes Can Teach Us To Navigate the Current One (April 21, 2020) Blog post on navigating the economic crash of COVID-19.
Gray Swan
The Gray Swan is another creature that was born out of the need to differentiate a Black Swan event from other kinds of disaster events. The Gray Swan gets its name from being somewhere between and Black Swan and a White Swan. It’s still rare, but it is a known hazard, with some predictability (though perhaps not certainty), and has the potential to cascade into a high impact event. Importantly, these can be acted on to mitigate potential disaster consequences.
Keep reading
Greg Hutchins breaks down his thoughts on Black Swans, Grey Swans, White Swans in a blog post.Red Swan
Wow, there are so many swans! And this one has a few definitions out there on the internet, but here I use the definition as coined by Gordon Woo because it fills an open space in the Risk Zoo collection: according to Woo, a red swan is a known, probable event that could create a significant impact, but eventually does not happen. An example of this is the Y2K bug, which was highly anticipated but ultimately did not cause rampant chaos at the turn of the millennium. Another example can also be applied to unfulfilled forecasts, such as a volcano that shows signs of unrest but ultimately does not erupt. These red swans are dangerous for the future because they can erode trust between the institutions giving the warning (e.g., scientists) and the public.
Keep reading
Siti Maziah Masramli’s Future Beasts And Where to Find Them.Calculating Catastrophe by Gordon Woo
Questions? Comments? Compliments?
This project was a part of the 2020 Risk & Resilience DAT/Artathon. Read more about the DAT/Artathon here.