In fact, had evolution deliberately set out to make such creatures look vulnerable and appealing to the human eye, it could hardly have done better. Unfortunately, we are not always very clever at distinguishing between the animals which are genuinely endangered, like the panda, and the extremely populous, like the grey seal.
We do not, after all, wax anthropomorphic about every creature under the sun. There is a species of vole fast disappearing from our hedgerows which has not been the subject of a single protest. And the corncrake - confined to a few areas of the Western Isles - continues to be cut up by farm machinery while we, as it were, whistle.
Seals, however, are different. When 29 "helpless" seal pups were shot dead on an Orkney beach a week ago, the media saw red and animal welfare protesters called for a boycott of Scottish fish.
Two years ago, the same knees jerked when seal pups were shot and beheaded on Orkney. The latter act, carried out in order to remove evidence of the type of firearm used, added to the public outrage. Following the latest killings, the SCOTTISH DAILY MAIL wrote emotively of "white fur stained vermilion with blood".
The pups were almost certainly killed by a fisherman who, rightly or wrongly, believed his livelihood was suffering because of the increase in grey seal numbers. Orkney and Shetland fishermen say each grey seal eats something like two tonnes of fish each year, which means the current population is consuming 230,000 tonnes per annum, more than the total catch of the Scottish white fish fleet.
Seal attacks, meanwhile, are having a serious impact on inshore lobster fishing. A few years ago, seals "learned" how to chew through the string on a creel and steal the bait. The fishermen responded by replacing the string with toughened rubber; two years later, the seals have perfected a technique to break through the rubber. Was it at this point perhaps, that a lobster fishermen reached for his gun and took a walk along the shore?
The killing was desperate and it was also senseless because killing a few seals will make no difference to the number of lobster in creels, or the number of fish in the sea: when one predator dies it is replaced by another.
But what can you do when the creature you believe to be partly responsible for your declining standard of living just happens to conform to the public's idea of nature at its cuddliest, and is therefore beyond criticism? Even notable scientists have succumbed in their time to wax over-sentimentally about the seal. The ecologist Frank Fraser Darling wrote in the 1940s: "I am amazed at the likeness of these great seals to human beings in much of their behaviour. They are indeed the people of the sea."
Fishermen, on the other hand, are people form some other bit of land who are held responsible for all the evil under the sea. A government marine biologist, who believes seals are now protected by public opinion rather than scientific evidence, told me: "The people of London would give up fish rather than have seals killed."
So while seals, whales, dolphins and porpoises corner the market in cuddly adjectives, fishermen are vilified.
The extent to which the natural world is removed from everyday life was demonstrated in remarkable fashion earlier this year when dolphins were filmed in the Moray Firth attacking small porpoises.
Shock! The human of the sea behaving like the worst English football hooligan. What was going on? Surely pollution must be to blame, or perhaps they were starving because fishermen had removed all the fish on which they normally feed. These reactions - and the breathless tabloid reporting - suggested that dolphins had risen, in the collective human consciousness, above natural, animalistic behaviour.
In such a soup of sentimentality, is there room for sensible consideration of the pressing marine management question; should there be a seal cull? Privately, it is admitted in the Scottish Office that this is "too hot a potato".
Until recently, the best evidence available to ministers on the relationship between seal numbers and fish stocks, relied on work carried out in the 1980s by the Sea Mammal Research Unit at Cambridge, where scientists looked for the tiny earbones of fish in seal faeces.
The results suggested seals were largely eating sand eels, and therefore could not be blamed for declines in cod or salmon. The work was inconclusive, however, because of the simple fact that seals may eat only the softer parts of large fish and reject the heads. Over the next three years, the SMRU will carry out more detailed research on the effects of seals on commercial fish stocks.
Informed sources, however, believe a pro-cull recommendation is unlikely. The marine scientist who said seals were more important to the public than fishermen, suggested that proper studies were not being funded for fear of what they might reveal.
Meantime, there is no shortage of anecdotal evidence. Irish scientists have filmed seals underwater taking fish from nets, and salmon farmers legally shoot hundreds of seals each year to prevent them attacking their cages.
One coastal netsman admitted that he spent a summer season sitting on top of a ladder, day after day, shooting every seal he saw. He claimed that if he did not shoot them, his nets would be full of leftovers. In the end he gave up and abandoned the netting station to the seals.
When the last licensed culls were stopped by the Government in 1978, the grey seal population stood at around 60,000. It is now thought to be nearly 115,000, and some seal colonies are suffering overcrowding as a result. The Monach Isles off the Hebrides have unprecedented numbers on their shores, as have the Farne Islands off Northumberland.
Some observers say a massive cull of up to 50,000 animals would be needed to boost fish stocks - but even if culling were reintroduced, it is unlikely that slaughter on such a scale would be permitted - or possible, given the state of public opinion.
Of course, there is another way to look at seals. Countries such as Norway still take a sustainable harvest of marine mammals for their excellent meat and skins. The red meat is regarded as a delicacy in the Lofoten Islands, and the skin makes a handsome, warm jacket.
To people who live inside the Arctic Circle, the embarrassed discussions in Britain about whether seals should be killed must appear to be some kind or urban delirium. What could be more natural - certainly more natural than factory farming - than harvesting a tasty, wild resource?