Why Conservationists Should Heed Pokémon

overall score with a Poisson error structure and with child's age, age 2 , the child's sex, the organism type (wildlife or Pokémon), and their interactions as possible predictors accounted for 43.2% of the deviance in scores. Identification success showed a hump-shaped relation with age (age + age 2 : χ 2 = 105.0, df = 2, P < 0.001; see figure). On average, boys scored slightly better than girls (sex: χ 2 = 19.59, df = 1, P < 0.001), but only because of girls' poorer performance at Pokémon (organism type * sex: χ 2 = 23.92, df = 1, P < 0.001). The effect of age differed with organism type (organism type * age + organism type * age 2 : χ 2 = 18.85, df = 2, P < 0.001). For wildlife, mean identification success rose from 32% at age 4 to 53% at age 8 and then fell slightly; for Pokémon, it rose from 7% at age 4 to 78% by age 8, with children aged 8 and over typically identifying Pokémon "species" substantially better than organisms such as oak trees or badgers. Our findings carry two messages for conservationists. First, young children clearly have tremendous capacity for learning about creatures (whether natural or man-made), being able at age 8 to identify nearly 80% of a sample drawn from 150 synthetic "species." Second, it appears that conservationists are doing less well than the creators of Pokémon at inspiring interest in their subjects: During their primary school years, children apparently learn far more about Pokémon than about their native wildlife and enter secondary school being able to name less than 50% of common wildlife types. Evidence from elsewhere links loss of knowledge about the natural world to growing isolation from it ( 3, 4). People care about what they know. With the world's urban population rising by 160,000 people daily ( 8), conservationists need to reestablish children's links with nature if they are to win over the hearts and minds of the next generation. Is Ecomon the way ahead?