Storytelling with Gwiber and local school children at St David’s airfield.
Photo credit Sam Kelly.

By Sam Kelly, Angela Julian, John Kelly, Emma Gardiner, John Baker, and Chris Monk.

Read the full paper here.

Adders are the UK’s only venomous snake, and they are experiencing widespread population declines in the UK and beyond. A contributing factor for these declines is public misunderstanding about adders. Misunderstandings lead to a poor public image, persecution and potentially a lack of willingness to conserve these animals. Likewise, people’s emotional connection to the natural world is declining, especially amongst children. This may also negatively impact children’s attitudes towards adders and other wildlife, which could affect adder conservation.

This project (Adders are Amazing!) explored whether attitudes towards adders and nature connectedness could be improved using art and science activities alone, without any direct adder contact, with children aged 8-11. To measure project impact, 111 school pupils completed questionnaires before and after the project. The questionnaires showed that there were improvements in the children’s attitudes towards adders and increased connectedness to nature. These results suggest that conservation bodies could use similar programmes to promote understanding and acceptance of ‘unpopular’ species.