| What Wildlife?
“What Wildlife”? This a question I read in Sue Everett’s Conservation News section of the August edition of British Wildlife.
The article reported that the Travelodge hotel chain carried out a survey of 3000 people to find out what they think of the countryside, and that the majority of people canvassed thought “it is boring because there is nothing to do or see”. To quote the article; 83% could not identify a Bluebell, one in ten adults thought a Hare was a Deer, 71% could not identify a Pine Tree, 42% could not identify an Otter, and the thing that struck me the most was that one in ten of the people surveyed could not identify a Sheep.
The article did not mention anything about cows but if people could not identify sheep I wonder what they think cows are. It is like asking where peas come from? Nine times out of ten the answer is Birds Eye or a Super Market!
The conclusion was that Urban populations had become “totally disconnected with the countryside and the wildlife it should support”.
I find this conclusion rather disturbing. For the last ten/fifteen years, before I retired (2007), I travelled a lot of the country and many of the hotels I stayed in where either Travel or Premier Lodges or similar types of ‘low budget’ hotels. Many of them situated in or near commercial or business parks; with little or no access to the countryside or even the nearest town. Is the report suggesting that the majority of people staying at their hotels are ‘urbanites’ and have little or no knowledge of the countryside. From my experience I’m not sure that is the case. Many of the people I have met in hotels are from all parts of the countryside including urban areas and a lot of them enjoy and respect the countryside and its wildlife.
However, despite the above hyperbole, the concern is, and it is an recurring question, why is it so many ‘adults, cannot identify our most common animals or plants. It may actually depend on how the question is asked; more people may have got the question right if they had been asked to identify the ‘lamb’ instead of the sheep. After all we eat more lamb than mutton (sheep).
Does anyone else have views on this.
Harold.  |