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The extinction of experience in a rural areas are more knowledgeable about wildlife species
and have a more positive attitude about them than their
biodiversity hotspot: rural school chil- counterparts from urban and semi-urban regions11–13.
dren’s knowledge of animals in However, such knowledge may not extend to specific in-
the Western Ghats, India formation about particular species or even make children
more empathetic regarding the conservation of wildlife
V. V. Binoy1, Anitha Kurup2 and species14. Studies also attest that media sources, particu-
larly the television, play an important role in influencing
Sindhu Radhakrishna 1,*
1
children’s attitudes towards animals7,15,16.
Animal Behaviour and Cognition Programme, and
2 In a developing, biodiversity-rich country like India,
Education Programme, National Institute of Advanced Studies,
Indian Institute of Science Campus, Bengaluru 560 012, India wildlife conservation can only be sustained by nurturing
conservation-positive attitudes in children 12,17. However,
Lack of environmental awareness or ignorance re- except for a handful of studies that have examined the
garding the ecological role of animals among children awareness of students regarding environmental and bio-
has long-term negative consequences for the biodiver- diversity issues 18–20, little is known about children’s
sity of a nation. We conducted a study in a biodiversity attitudes towards wildlife and its conservation. We con-
hotspot in southern India to examine the knowledge ducted a study in a biodiversity hotspot region in south-
level of rural school children regarding the mammali- ern India – Valanchery, (11.03N, 76.03E), Malappuram
an species in their region. The results of the study district, Kerala, to analyse rural school children’s
showed that school children were able to recognize knowledge and attitudes towards the wildlife inhabiting
regional mammalian species that are publicized by
their region. We hypothesized that study children would
media sources, but had little knowledge about their
conservation status or more significant information be more knowledgeable about animals that are publicized
about them. Environmental education programmes by media sources than animals that are ignored/non-
must focus on making children more aware of the im- publicized, and that their primary source of information
portance of various animals sharing their habitat, so would be the media.
that they have greater knowledge regarding the eco- Malappuram is well-forested with a cover of
logical roles of animals in the ecosystem. 758.86 km2 (ref. 21). Many houses in the study area have
large backyards that form extended habitats for small
Keywords: Biodiversity hotspot, environmental educa- animals. Hence, living in this region provides the scope
tion, mammals, school children. for close interactions with many wild animal species.
Additionally, environmental education for school chil-
CHILDREN exhibit great interest in learning about the dren is strongly promoted in the region through the
behaviour and habits of wild animals, and attitudes National Green Corps (NGC) programme initiated by the
formed about a species during childhood may have long- Government of India, and other environmental awareness
lasting effects on the nature of their relationships with activities coordinated by several non-governmental organ-
diverse types of animals sharing their habitat 1–3. Some izations (e.g. the SEED (Student Empowerment for
scholars have drawn attention to ‘children’s extinction of Environmental Development) initiative by the regional
experience’, pointing out that in the current age, children newspaper Mathrubhumi)22. We chose mammals as the
spend less time outdoors and that ‘spontaneous contact focal animal group to test the knowledge of school chil-
with nature is a vanishing experience of childhood’ 4–6. dren, as some studies have shown that children are most
Other studies also caution that children’s increasing de- familiar with mammals than other animal groups 23–25.
pendence on secondary sources such as television and the Furthermore, some mammals are involved in human–
internet for information about the environment results in wildlife conflict issues and therefore tend to appear in
them being more familiar with exotic or charismatic wild- media reports26.
life species promoted by the media than those living in We used a questionnaire survey to test study children’s
their backyards 7,8. This alienation of children and young knowledge of mammal species reported from the Western
adults from regional/local biodiversity could negatively Ghats mountain range that runs through Kerala. The
impact attempts to conserve indigenous biodiversity, as questionnaire (Supplementary Table 1) listed 46 wild
citizens unaware of the importance of indigenous species mammals found in the Western Ghats (Supplementary
cannot appreciate, support or actively take part in activi- Table 2). Images of the species, in addition to their com-
ties devoted to conserving them 1,9. mon names in English and Malayalam, the regional lan-
Studies on children’s attitudes or knowledge regarding guage of the state, were provided in the questionnaire.
wildlife suggest that they prefer domestic and exotic fauna The local names of mammal species were validated
over native wildlife 10,11 and that school children from through conversations with teachers and village elders in
the area. The questionnaire was administered to a total of
*For correspondence. (e-mail: sindhu.radhakrishna@gmail.com) 496 students – 340 girls and 156 boys in the age group of
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12–15 years (from 18 schools in the region), and the re- identified publicized species significantly more often than
spondents were asked to indicate if he/she could recognize the non-publicized species (both present and absent com-
mammal species. Students were also asked to indicate bined; F test, F1,44 = 8.63, P = 0.005). There was a signi-
their source of knowledge regarding the animal species, ficant inter-group difference in the ability of children to
i.e. whether they had seen the animal in their home recognize mammalian species from the four categories –
surroundings or learned about it from secondary sources PP, PA, NPP and NPA (ANOVA F3,40 = 4.77, P = 0.006;
such as television, radio, magazines, newspapers, books, Table 1). Post-hoc analysis (Tukey’s test) revealed that
etc. We also questioned children regarding the hunt- significantly more children recognized publicized species
ing/killing of the focal species and the reasons behind it. reported from their habitat in comparison to non-publici-
Parental consent was obtained prior to the administration zed absent species (tij = –3.02; P < 0.05). However, there
of the questionnaire. were no significant differences between the other catego-
We classified the mammalian species listed in the ries (Table 1).
questionnaire into four categories according to their pres- Discussions with participants revealed that they were
ence/absence in the study area and prominence in media confused while identifying certain species belonging to
reports and environmental awareness programmes, either the NPA category. For instance, many students com-
because they are flagship species, or conflict animals or plained that it was difficult for them to differentiate bet-
pest animals. The four categories were: publicized mam- ween golden jackal and fox since they were unaware of
malian species absent in study region (PA), publicized the former and hence, they misidentified the golden jack-
species that are present in the study region (PP), non- al as fox in the questionnaire. To avoid any potential bias
publicized mammalian species not reported from the caused by such misinformation, we only considered those
study region (NPA) and non-publicized species present in animals which were identified by more than 25% of the
the study region (NPP; Table 1). We used F test and participants in all four groups (Supplementary Table 2)
ANOVA for testing inter-category variation in the ability while analysing the cross-category variation in ‘source of
of children to identify the mammals, knowledge of killing information’, ‘hunting pressure faced’ and ‘causes for
pressure faced and reasons behind it, and Tukey’s test for killing’. Additionally, we conducted an inter-category
the post-hoc analysis since the data followed normal comparison of the ability of children to recognize mam-
distribution. mals, after removing the above-mentioned species from
Our results showed that children were more familiar the list; however, this did not reveal any significant varia-
with certain kinds of mammal species than others descri- tion (ANOVA F3,22 = 1.21; P = 0.33).
bed in the questionnaire. They readily identified common The greater familiarity with publicized and present
and pest animals such as the bandicoot rat, striped squir- species was also reflected in children’s reliance on
rel and house shrew (>90%), but were less familiar with information sources for data about animals. The cross-
the forest cousins of the same species: bush rat (23%), category analysis of respondents’ dependency on second-
flying squirrel (19%) and tree shrew (19%) respectively. ary resources for information about the focal species
Participants showed poor awareness of elusive forest revealed a significant difference (ANOVA F3,22 = 4.36;
animals that are rarely discussed in environmental out- P = 0.013; Figure 1). Post-hoc analysis showed that PP
reach programmes, such as fishing cat (35%), Nilgiri was significantly different from PA (tij = –2.95; P < 0.05)
marten (27%) and brown palm civet (20%). Children and NPA (tij = –2.77; P < 0.05). In other words, children
from Valanchery were less dependent on media sources
for information about publicized species living in their
Table 1. Cross-category comparison (post-hoc analysis) of respondent surroundings in comparison to publicized and non-
responses regarding different mammal categories publicized mammals that were absent in their surround-
PP NPA NPP ings. This result indicates that students may be obtaining
Recognition of mammalian species information about PP species (which includes rodent
PA 0.41 –2.50 –0.81 pests and conflict species such as wild boar and elephant)
PP –3.03* –1.30 from other sources such as parents and peers. However,
NPA 2.33 cross-category comparison of hunting pressure faced by
NPP mammals (ANOVA F3,22 = 27.54; P = 0.33) and the rea-
Dependency on secondary resources for information sons behind it (ANOVA F3,22 = 27.54; P = 0.33) revealed
PA –2.96* –0.39 –2.32 no influence of either animal prioritization or its presence
PP 2.77* 1.14
in the study region. This suggests that participant children
NPA –2.09
generally had little interest in actively obtaining first-
NPP
hand information about animals or through media
PA, Publicized mammalian species absent in the study region; PP, Pub-
licized species present in the study region; NPA, Non-publicized sources. Although most of the children were able to rec-
mammalian species not reported from the study region; NPP, Non- ognize the mammals reported from their home area, about
publicized species present in the study region; *P<0.05. half of them had never seen the publicized animals directly
314 CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 121, NO. 2, 25 JULY 2021
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Figure 1. Student responses regarding identification of mammals and information about them. PA, Publicized
mammalian species absent in the study region; PP, Publicized species present in the study region; NPA, Non-
publicized mammalian species not reported from the study region; NPP, Non-publicized species present in the
study region.

(PP: 51%) and less than a quarter had seen the non- ing their habitat and appreciating that coexistence is
publicized species reported from their area (NPP: 24%). essential to preserve wild animals in the subcontinent.
It is interesting to note that although the PP category in- Environmental education programmes aimed at school
cludes common mammalian pests (rat, mouse) and a children should focus on local species, the ecological role
charismatic species (Asian elephant), very few respond- of common and less publicized species and equitable
ents reported observing these animals in their home sur- human–animal relations. Establishment of citizen science
roundings (Figure 1). The basic science textbook projects in rural areas involving students and local popu-
followed in the eighth standard (our respondents were lation, and promoting joint knowledge production can
mainly from the eighth and ninth standard) includes a also help in increasing environmental awareness in chil-
small segment on threats to biodiversity in the Western dren12,28. The conversion of natural ecosystems into human-
Ghats in the chapter on biodiversity. Although the text- dominated areas and its adverse impacts, both direct 29,30
book does provide information on wild animals; exam- and indirect31, on different animal species is expected to
ples of threatened species are publicized ones such as increase in the future. The lack of information regarding
Nilgiri tahr, lion-tailed macaque, Malabar civet, etc. indigenous species among children and adults can only
The lack of awareness in respondent children regarding accelerate species loss and leave us ill-equipped to pro-
less publicized species, and the hunting pressures faced tect and conserve even the flora and fauna present in our
by them and their confusion about such animals raises backyards32.
serious ecological concerns. Reduced awareness about
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