Ichthyology Department Loses Funding War to Department That Studies Cooler Animals

The University of California's Department of Ichthyology has lost its annual funding bid to the Department of Mammalogy for the ninth consecutive year, a streak that department chair Dr. Wendy Gill attributes to 'the charisma gap between fish and literally every other animal.'

'Mammals get $4 million for a study on dolphin communication,' Dr. Gill said, reviewing the budget allocation with visible frustration. 'We asked for $200,000 to study the evolutionary radiation of gobies in the Indo-Pacific, and they told us to resubmit next year with a more compelling visual.'

The funding committee, which includes representatives from multiple departments, acknowledged that charismatic megafauna tend to receive preferential treatment.

'People care about pandas,' said committee chair Dr. Russell Vertebra. 'People care about wolves. Nobody calls their congressman about a goby. It's not our fault. It's market forces.'

Dr. Gill has attempted to make fish research more appealing to funding bodies, including renaming a study on goby locomotion 'Extreme Fish Parkour: How Gobies Conquer Waterfalls' and adding stock photos of attractive researchers holding fish to her grant proposals.

'It didn't work,' she said. 'The mammalogy people just showed a video of a baby elephant and got approved on the spot.'

The ichthyology department currently operates with a budget that Dr. Gill describes as 'approximately what the mammalogy department spends on conference catering.' Their laboratory equipment includes a microscope from 1997, a fish tank with a slow leak, and a poster of a salmon that a departing graduate student left behind.

'Fish are the most diverse vertebrate group on the planet,' Dr. Gill said. 'There are more species of fish than all mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians combined. But sure, let's give another million dollars to the people studying bears.'