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I live in Australia. My kids are well-versed in British and American animals like squirrels, badgers, hares, raccoons, moose, bears and deer from childrens book

I live in Australia. My kids are well-versed in British and American animals like squirrels, badgers, hares, raccoons, moose, bears and deer from childrens books and songs. However, we don't have any of them here in Australia. Knowledge of animals and experience in nature are frequently unrelated. My kids spend plenty of time outside but how often do they see animals (other than the occasional bird)? They're asleep when possums and fruit bats are around. They occasionally see kangaroos on their grandparents farm. In general though, they see cats, dogs and other pets: the animals we deliberately introduce to kids.

astura 9y ago
Exactly. I spent a ton of my childhood outside but the animals I actually saw out there were pigeons and stray cats.
4ndr3vv 9y ago
I think your example is analogous to what the article is referring to; children are excellent at learning the names of what they are exposed to. "In Britain, the “roaming range” (the area within which children are permitted to play unsupervised) has shrunk by more than 90% in 40 years." What does "..plenty of time outside.." mean here? Playing in the garden? I've no real exposure to what Australian wildlife is like, but it cant all be nocturnal. The anxiety that (we) parents have of our children's welfare is the culture shift that is the root of these changes. Its far easier for me to keep an eye on my kids while they play in the garden, or reading about the outside whilst sitting at my feet.
- cyphar 9y ago
  > What does "..plenty of time outside.." mean here? Playing in the garden? I've no real exposure to what Australian wildlife is like, but it cant all be nocturnal. It can be quite dangerous, which is why we're taught about it as children. I'm not really sure where GP is living, but it doesn't strike me as anything like where I grew up.
randomstudent 9y ago
This is very interesting. Do you know if they have any interesting misconceptions about those animals they know about but have never seen (assuming you yourself know enough about rabbits, badgers, hares and such to know that they are misconceptions)? It's interesting when many people know about a certain phenomenon through media or things like cartoons, which obviously distort reality beyond any possibility of recognition. The most amazing example I've ever seen is the one about bullfights. Apparently, many Americans know about bullfights from a single Bugs Bunny sketch, in which he is dressed as a Matador and kinda "dances" with the bull in the arena. This apparently made many people think that that's basically what happens in a bullfight. Then you get some nasty culture shock when people watch the real thing, as in this reddit thread (WARNING: video with blood and violence against animals, first in CGI then in real life): https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/68i332/to_those_who_say_bullfighting_is_cultural/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/68i332/to_those_who... The comments were really surprising to me. I would expect most people from outside of Spain, Latin America and Portugal not to know about bullfights, but I definitely didn't expect people to know about it from a cartoon and harbor so many misconceptions about what it really is! Spoiler: in a bullfight, the matador does nasty things to the bull (like sticking short spears with hooks so that they don't come out when the bull moves), dodges the bull's charge while distracting it with a cape, and in the end he kills it with a sword through the back. If the killing blow fails to kill the bull, they kill the animal with a knife just below the brain. Also, Matador literally means killer in Spanish, because he kills the bull.
- amelius 9y ago
  > Do you know if they have any interesting misconceptions about those animals they know about but have never seen Another misconception kids seem to have is about the hippopotamus, which is always depicted as a cute animal, but which in fact is one of the most dangerous animals around.
  - yardie 9y ago
    Baby hippos are really cute. In most people’s minds they simply grow into a bigger version of that. Not the eventual psychopaths they are in reality.
2muchcoffeeman 9y ago
Occasional bird? In Sydney you get cockatoos, galahs, magpies, rainbow lorikeets, ibis, crested pigeons, kookaburras, noisy miners among other stuff that I can't name. Flying foxes are out during dusk, so kids are surely awake.
- cyphar 9y ago
  Yeah, I'm also confused. I grew up in very urban areas in Sydney and I was very familiar with all sorts of flora and fauna (we were taught about them in primary school, and you would see them around the playground). Not to mention spiders in the garden, blue bottles and jellyfish on the beach, all manner of bugs and bats late at night, etc. I also played Pokemon as a kid, and I don't recall ever thinking that animals were uninteresting.

astura 9y ago

Exactly. I spent a ton of my childhood outside but the animals I actually saw out there were pigeons and stray cats.

4ndr3vv 9y ago

I think your example is analogous to what the article is referring to; children are excellent at learning the names of what they are exposed to. "In Britain, the “roaming range” (the area within which children are permitted to play unsupervised) has shrunk by more than 90% in 40 years." What does "..plenty of time outside.." mean here? Playing in the garden? I've no real exposure to what Australian wildlife is like, but it cant all be nocturnal. The anxiety that (we) parents have of our children's welfare is the culture shift that is the root of these changes. Its far easier for me to keep an eye on my kids while they play in the garden, or reading about the outside whilst sitting at my feet.

cyphar 9y ago
> What does "..plenty of time outside.." mean here? Playing in the garden? I've no real exposure to what Australian wildlife is like, but it cant all be nocturnal. It can be quite dangerous, which is why we're taught about it as children. I'm not really sure where GP is living, but it doesn't strike me as anything like where I grew up.

randomstudent 9y ago

This is very interesting. Do you know if they have any interesting misconceptions about those animals they know about but have never seen (assuming you yourself know enough about rabbits, badgers, hares and such to know that they are misconceptions)? It's interesting when many people know about a certain phenomenon through media or things like cartoons, which obviously distort reality beyond any possibility of recognition. The most amazing example I've ever seen is the one about bullfights. Apparently, many Americans know about bullfights from a single Bugs Bunny sketch, in which he is dressed as a Matador and kinda "dances" with the bull in the arena. This apparently made many people think that that's basically what happens in a bullfight. Then you get some nasty culture shock when people watch the real thing, as in this reddit thread (WARNING: video with blood and violence against animals, first in CGI then in real life): https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/68i332/to_those_who_say_bullfighting_is_cultural/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/68i332/to_those_who... The comments were really surprising to me. I would expect most people from outside of Spain, Latin America and Portugal not to know about bullfights, but I definitely didn't expect people to know about it from a cartoon and harbor so many misconceptions about what it really is! Spoiler: in a bullfight, the matador does nasty things to the bull (like sticking short spears with hooks so that they don't come out when the bull moves), dodges the bull's charge while distracting it with a cape, and in the end he kills it with a sword through the back. If the killing blow fails to kill the bull, they kill the animal with a knife just below the brain. Also, Matador literally means killer in Spanish, because he kills the bull.

amelius 9y ago
> Do you know if they have any interesting misconceptions about those animals they know about but have never seen Another misconception kids seem to have is about the hippopotamus, which is always depicted as a cute animal, but which in fact is one of the most dangerous animals around.
- yardie 9y ago
  Baby hippos are really cute. In most people’s minds they simply grow into a bigger version of that. Not the eventual psychopaths they are in reality.

2muchcoffeeman 9y ago

Occasional bird? In Sydney you get cockatoos, galahs, magpies, rainbow lorikeets, ibis, crested pigeons, kookaburras, noisy miners among other stuff that I can't name. Flying foxes are out during dusk, so kids are surely awake.

cyphar 9y ago
Yeah, I'm also confused. I grew up in very urban areas in Sydney and I was very familiar with all sorts of flora and fauna (we were taught about them in primary school, and you would see them around the playground). Not to mention spiders in the garden, blue bottles and jellyfish on the beach, all manner of bugs and bats late at night, etc. I also played Pokemon as a kid, and I don't recall ever thinking that animals were uninteresting.