I think a lot of people do care about animals even if they don't play a part in their lives, but they don't really think too much about it. When buying fish they don't really know that this will negative affect certain species in the ocean, and if they had known they might have chosen differently.
Do you have a way you can make people feel a bit more emphatic with animals?
Sadly I don't have a great solution to this. Penguins should not be too difficult to get people to sympathize with naturally, because they have they subjective "cute factor" that is very important when getting money for saving species and protecting areas. It's a lot more difficult to convince people to save certain fish species, or even insect species.
So what you're saying is just creating awareness will help?
Sure, it does help to a certain extent. However, we do of course also need people who actually do the physical conservation, such as protecting the areas from poachers. But raising awareness, and especially raising money is very important as well.