The Telegraph<\/a>\u00a0reported.<\/p>\n\u201cBut if a child\u2019s only exposure to bears is through characters with very exaggerated, human-like traits, they may grow up with a limited or skewed understanding of real wildlife,\u201d Mouquet told The Telegraph.<\/p>\n
Give ‘Em Teeth And Claws?<\/p>\n
The researchers suggest that children\u2019s plush toys be made to look more like the real thing.<\/p>\n
Retired federal ecologist Chuck Neal of Cody told Cowboy State Daily that he doesn\u2019t think that would change anything.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure it would make much difference, because it (the plush bear) would still be a toy, even with teeth and claws,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Rannow agreed that exposing children to more realistic-looking bear toys or images would work, if the kids aren\u2019t also instilled with lessons about respecting nature and the sheer power of real bears.<\/p>\n
\u201cA realistic plush polar bear, or a virtual digital twin of a polar bear, is not going to make more people respectful of a bear,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t Instill \u2018Phobias\u2019<\/p>\n
Canadian bear safety expert Kim Titchener told Cowboy State Daily that teaching children realistic lessons about bears is important, but giving them cute teddy bears for Christmas doesn\u2019t hurt anything.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a ton of teddy bears growing up,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
When educating children about respecting bears and staying safe around them, it\u2019s important to catch them at the right age, she said.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s found the \u201caround grade four or five\u201d is the ideal time to teach children about bear safety.<\/p>\n
Children of that age can understand the need for rules and grasp that bears are wild animals, best left alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can teach them that if we see bears in the wild, we can\u2019t just walk up to them and try to touch them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Trying to teach children younger than that about how dangerous bears can be could \u201ccreate fears or phobias\u201d in them, she added.<\/p>\n
While she\u2019s not worried about teddy bears sending kids the wrong message, Titchener said she wonders how images generated by artificial intelligence (AI) might warp the views of some adults.<\/p>\n
\u201cHave you seen some of the AI lately? It\u2019s incredible. I\u2019ve seen some videos that seem to show something like 20 black bears walking with a group of hikers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Named After Teddy Roosevelt<\/p>\n
Teddy bears have \u201cbeen around for a good century,\u201d so they can\u2019t be blamed for recent bad behavior toward nature and bears, Neal said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA\u00a0teddy bear “could possibly give the impression that bears are a harmless creature, which they are not, but it\u2019s nothing new,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The teddy bear\u2019s namesake is President Theodore\u00a0\u201cTeddy\u201d\u00a0Roosevelt, inspired by an incident in 1902.<\/p>\n
Roosevelt was hunting bears in Mississippi, but wasn\u2019t having any luck.<\/p>\n
\u201cRoosevelt’s assistants cornered and tied a black bear to a willow tree,\u201d\u00a0according to the National Park Service. “They summoned Roosevelt and suggested that he shoot it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Viewing this as extremely unsportsmanlike, Roosevelt refused to shoot the bear.”<\/p>\n
Roosevelt\u2019s mercy toward the bear in that moment inspired the creation of plush children\u2019s toys called teddy bears, the agency says.<\/p>\n
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A team of French researchers\u00a0claims that teddy bears are \u201ctoo cute\u201d and give kids the wrong impression about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-374615","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}