I was thinking, maybe since we can get essences from nurturing, maybe make an option to nurture a specific species? Whether it be eggs or hatchlings. I think that would really help people out who find that the easiest way to get essences, and to improve the chances of them getting the species they want.

Open to constructive criticism on this idea ^^

This has already been suggested and passed on because it would skew the nurtures given on less popular vs. more popular species.

This has been suggested every so often over the years, and Krin has said in the past that it will not be a thing as it would make it likely that unpopular species would suffer from people not nurturing them anymore.

I can't remember this second whether he specifically mentioned other reasons, but I would think that being able to easily target for essences, especially of fabled/popular species, would damage the essence economy as well (not sure how robust that economy actually is, though, so not sure how big an impact that would have).

Also, it would trivialize the nurturing boards.

You can already target a species if you really want to, though, using the Advanced search. I believe that is seen as an acceptable way to target because it takes its own kind of effort to target a species that way.

Added after looking back to 2014: I tried looking for the specific thread that Krin responded to, but couldn't find it (must not have had any variation of 'nurture' or 'nurturing' in the title). I did find 14 other threads suggesting this all the way from 2022 back to 2014 though XD In one of those threads Faiona mentioned the Advanced Search way of targeting, though, so that means, to me, that that is officially acceptable as a workaround ^.^