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‘Kookaburras, kangaroos and my frilly‐necked lizard’: The value of wildlife, nature and companion animals for older community‐dwelling Australians

OBJECTIVE: With little research investigating older Australians' experience of companion animal (pet) ownership or wildlife encounters, this paper focuses on the value of animals in their lives. METHODS: Three online focus groups explored 103 older adults' lived experience of home and comm...

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Autores principales: Dendle, Kelli, Miller, Evonne, Buys, Laurie, Vine, Desley
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9311417/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35357755
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ajag.13070
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author Dendle, Kelli
Miller, Evonne
Buys, Laurie
Vine, Desley
author_facet Dendle, Kelli
Miller, Evonne
Buys, Laurie
Vine, Desley
author_sort Dendle, Kelli
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVE: With little research investigating older Australians' experience of companion animal (pet) ownership or wildlife encounters, this paper focuses on the value of animals in their lives. METHODS: Three online focus groups explored 103 older adults' lived experience of home and community, with this paper focused on interactions with animals—companion animals and wildlife. RESULTS: Most (60%) had at least one pet, which brought love and joy into their lives. Reflexive thematic analysis identified three themes: pets as family; challenges of pet ownership; and connection to everyday wildlife and nature. CONCLUSIONS: In addition to valuing companion animals (typically cats and dogs), this research is among the first to show that some older people also develop ongoing relationships with local Australian wildlife, such as kookaburras, kangaroos, lizards and birds, which raises the possibility that fostering connections with wildlife may enhance well‐being.
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spelling pubmed-93114172022-07-29 ‘Kookaburras, kangaroos and my frilly‐necked lizard’: The value of wildlife, nature and companion animals for older community‐dwelling Australians Dendle, Kelli Miller, Evonne Buys, Laurie Vine, Desley Australas J Ageing Brief Reports OBJECTIVE: With little research investigating older Australians' experience of companion animal (pet) ownership or wildlife encounters, this paper focuses on the value of animals in their lives. METHODS: Three online focus groups explored 103 older adults' lived experience of home and community, with this paper focused on interactions with animals—companion animals and wildlife. RESULTS: Most (60%) had at least one pet, which brought love and joy into their lives. Reflexive thematic analysis identified three themes: pets as family; challenges of pet ownership; and connection to everyday wildlife and nature. CONCLUSIONS: In addition to valuing companion animals (typically cats and dogs), this research is among the first to show that some older people also develop ongoing relationships with local Australian wildlife, such as kookaburras, kangaroos, lizards and birds, which raises the possibility that fostering connections with wildlife may enhance well‐being. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022-03-31 2022-06 /pmc/articles/PMC9311417/ /pubmed/35357755 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ajag.13070 Text en © 2022 The Authors. Australasian Journal on Ageing by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of AJA Inc. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
spellingShingle Brief Reports
Dendle, Kelli
Miller, Evonne
Buys, Laurie
Vine, Desley
‘Kookaburras, kangaroos and my frilly‐necked lizard’: The value of wildlife, nature and companion animals for older community‐dwelling Australians
title ‘Kookaburras, kangaroos and my frilly‐necked lizard’: The value of wildlife, nature and companion animals for older community‐dwelling Australians
title_full ‘Kookaburras, kangaroos and my frilly‐necked lizard’: The value of wildlife, nature and companion animals for older community‐dwelling Australians
title_fullStr ‘Kookaburras, kangaroos and my frilly‐necked lizard’: The value of wildlife, nature and companion animals for older community‐dwelling Australians
title_full_unstemmed ‘Kookaburras, kangaroos and my frilly‐necked lizard’: The value of wildlife, nature and companion animals for older community‐dwelling Australians
title_short ‘Kookaburras, kangaroos and my frilly‐necked lizard’: The value of wildlife, nature and companion animals for older community‐dwelling Australians
title_sort ‘kookaburras, kangaroos and my frilly‐necked lizard’: the value of wildlife, nature and companion animals for older community‐dwelling australians
topic Brief Reports
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9311417/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35357755
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ajag.13070
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