Urban Park Visitors and Their Knowledge of Animal Species Christoph Randler, Anna Höllwarth and Steffen Schaal University of Education, PH Ludwigsburg, Germany ABSTRACT Informal or incidental learning in recreational parks has been rarely assessed, although most city-dwellers enjoy and appreciate wildlife in their day-to-day lives. Incidental or informal learning is non-intentional and grows out of spontaneous situations and is mostly self-directed. Here, we focus on the informal setting of a small urban park in Ludwigsburg (Germany) as a source of incidental learning. Two hundred and forty-eight visitors were interviewed at the park using a questionnaire, and 102 other people (non-vis- itors) acted as a control group. Park visitors scored significantly better in their knowledge of animal species compared with our control group. Species knowledge increased with age, with number of park visits, and with educa- tional level. Using the number of species visitors had previously seen at the park, we found a significant influence of educational level, park visiting fre- quency, and of park use. Ninety-seven percent of participants responded with positive attitudes towards animals, and most animals were detected by their movement, rather than by their sound or coloration. Keywords: animals, biodiversity, incidental learning, informal learning, knowledge Biodiversity has become one of the most important terms in envi- ronmental education (Gaston and Spicer 2004). However, biodiver- sity is a rather ill-defined, abstract and complex construct (van Weelie and Wals 2002) which has to be broken down into smaller entities to aid learning and understanding. Most environmental conservationists prefer species as the taxonomic level at which to focus (van Weelie and Wals 2002). Indeed, discrete species are often the focus of biodiversity and environmen- tal concerns, for example, in the case of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Dalton 2005), and the popularity of birds has been shown in many studies (Czeck, Krausmann and Borkhataria 1998; Bjerke and Østdahl 2004). Positive attitudes towards animals (Bjerke, Odegardstuen and Kaltenborn 1998, Bjerke, Kaltenborn and Odegardstuen 2001) and knowledge about ani- mals are often emphasized as predictors of environmental behavior (Randler and Bogner 2002; Gaston and Spicer 2004; Randler, Ilg and Kern 2005). Animals are a fascinating topic for children and adolescents. For example, in Norway, animal- related leisure activities received high scores in a survey: bird feeding (74%), or watching hare, fox or moose (63%; Bjerke, Odegardstuen and Kaltenborn 1998). Address for correspondence: Prof. Dr. Christoph Randler, University of Leipzig, Institute of Biology I, Didactics of Biology, Johannisallee 21–23, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany E-mail: Randler@uni-leipzig.de ❖ ANTHROZOÖS VOLUME 20, ISSUE 1 REPRINTS AVAILABLE PHOTOCOPYING © ISAZ 2007 PP 65 – 74 DIRECTLY FROM PERMITTED PRINTED IN THE UK THE PUBLISHERS BY LICENSING ONLY 65 Anthrozoös