Here's A Thought: Instead Of Marketing Dinosaurs & Unicorns To Kids, Try Getting Them Interested In Living/Real Animals

[hatrack]

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I know children who can list 10 different types of dinosaur but don’t know the difference between an African elephant and an Indian elephant. I know children who believe unicorns are real, but don’t realise that as many as 1,500 ponies live wild on Dartmoor. Children go to bed hugging a toy unicorn, but have never sat on the back of a pony. How many of our children are going to want to grow up to be naturalists or environmentalists if they aren’t taught about real animals?

My message to parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles, brothers and sisters is: if you want to introduce our tiny humans to animals, please buy them a book about aardvarks, brown kiwi, ring-tailed lemurs, crested porcupines or hippopotamuses. Across Europe, brown bears are being successfully reintroduced; what a thrilling piece of news to hook in a child’s interest. And it doesn’t have to be bears. Beavers are fantastic little mammals to learn about: they have gorgeous tails, build little dome-shaped dens called “lodges”, gnaw down trees, build dams, reroute rivers, and create whole new ecosystems. Under a new government licence scheme, they are being returned to waterways in England – so it’s not wildly misleading to teach children that, if they are patient, they might see one swimming along with a stick.

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If children become curious about insects, they won’t grow up with a fear of them. If you show children how intelligent octopuses are, when they are adults maybe they will choose not to eat them. If you tell them stories of orange orangutans then maybe as adults they will want to visit Borneo and play a part in protecting the rainforests – or at least they will avoid buying palm oil. If you want to start nearer home, maybe you know someone who has hedgehogs in their garden, snuffling around at dusk?

I’m begging those of you that are looking after the next generation: put a picture of a bottlenose dolphin on the wall, or a moose, a porcupine, a gorilla, or a penguin. If you want to take care of the environmentalists of tomorrow, please choose any book, lunchbox, T-shirt, fluffy toy or “experience” that is not about dinosaurs or unicorns. If you want a creature that looks prehistoric, choose a pangolin. If you want something with a horn, the swordfish is right there – and real.

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/13/children-unicorns-dinosaurs-living-animals-environmentalists