Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-5g6vh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T11:12:59.770Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Public preferences for species conservation: choosing between lethal control, habitat protection and no action

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 November 2016

MICHELLE L. LUTE  and
SHAHZEEN Z. ATTARI
MICHELLE L. LUTE*
Affiliation:
School of Public & Environmental Affairs, Indiana University Bloomington, 1315 East Tenth Street, Bloomington, IN 47408, USA WildEarth Guardians, PO Box 7516, Missoula, MT 59807, USA
SHAHZEEN Z. ATTARI
Affiliation:
School of Public & Environmental Affairs, Indiana University Bloomington, 1315 East Tenth Street, Bloomington, IN 47408, USA
*
*Correspondence: Dr. Michelle L. Lute Tel: +1 406 848 4910 e-mail: michelle.lute@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Despite increasing support for conservation efforts, humans exert strong negative forces on nature and disagree over the management of these effects. Conflicts over conservation policy may reflect evolving opinions about how people ought to conserve species and whether to intervene in various processes. To understand public preferences for conservation in the USA, we measured support for various strategies in five case studies, where we pitted one species against another in simplified but realistic scenarios. Among our online convenience sample of 1040 participants, we found the majority of participants favoured habitat protection in all but one case, and there was little acceptance of lethal control across all cases. The results reveal that habitat protection preferences positively relate to considerations of moral principles and ecosystems and negatively relate to economic and practical considerations. Older, conservative and male participants were less likely to support habitat protection and more likely to support no action. The results suggest broad support for holistic nature conservation that benefits both people and nature and highlight areas where current wildlife management may not align with public preferences. Controversy may continue until wildlife management policies are consistent with societal values and address moral and ecosystem considerations at multiple levels.

Keywords

invasive speciesendangered speciesdecision makingpolicy preferencescarnivorespredator–preyhuman–wildlife interactionshuman–wildlife conflict
Type
Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , June 2017 , pp. 139 - 147
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Supplementary material can be found online at http://doi.org/10.1017/S037689291600045X

References

Ansolabehere, S. & Schaffner, B.F. (2014) Does survey mode still matter? Findings from a 2010 multi-mode comparison. Political Analysis 22: 285–303.Google Scholar
Ari, E. & Yildiz, Z. (2014) Parallel lines assumption in ordinal logistic regression and analysis approaches. International Interdisciplinary Journal of Scientific Research 1: 8–23.Google Scholar
Baruch-Mordo, S., Breck, S.W., Wilson, K.R. & Broderick, J. (2011) The carrot or the stick? Evaluation of education and enforcement as management tools for human–wildlife conflicts. PLoS One 6: e15681.Google Scholar
Bell, J., Huber, J. & Viscusi, W.K. (2011) Survey mode effects on valuation of environmental goods. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 8: 1222–1243.Google Scholar
Bode, M., Baker, C.M. & Plein, M. (2015) Eradicating down the food chain: optimal multispecies eradication schedules for a commonly encountered invaded island ecosystem. Journal of Applied Ecology 52: 571–579.Google Scholar
Bourdeau, P. (2004) The man-nature relationship and environmental ethics. Journal of Environmental Radioactivity 72: 9–15.Google Scholar
Brotherstone, H., Miles, A., Robb, K.A., Atkin, W. & Wardle, J. (2006) The impact of illustrations on public understanding of the aim of cancer screening. Patient Education and Counseling 63: 328–335.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Browne-Nunez, C. (2002) Americans’ Attitudes toward Wolves and Wolf Reintroduction: An Annotated Bibliography. Denver, CO: US Geological Survey.Google Scholar
Carey, M. P., Sanderson, B. L., Barnas, K. A. & Olden, J. D. (2012) Native invaders – challenges for science, management, policy, and society. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 10: 373–381.Google Scholar
Ceballos, G., Ehrlich, P.R., Barnosky, A.D., García, A., Pringle, R.M. & Palmer, T.M. (2015) Accelerated modern human-induced species losses: entering the sixth mass extinction. Science Advances 1: e1400253.Google Scholar
Chan, K.M.A., Pringle, R.M., Ranganathan, J., Boggs, C.L., Chan, Y.L., Ehrlich, P.R. et al. (2007) When agendas collide: human welfare and biological conservation. Conservation Biology 21: 59–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, J.L. (2015) Uncharismatic invasives. Environmental Humanities 6: 34–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conniff, R. (2014) A trophy hunt that's good for rhinos. New York Times, January 20, 2014.Google Scholar
Dickman, A.J., Hazzah, L., Carbone, C. & Durant, S.M. (2014) Carnivores, culture and ‘contagious conflict’: multiple factors influence perceived problems with carnivores in Tanzania's Ruaha landscape. Biological Conservation 178: 19–27.Google Scholar
Doherty, T.S., Dickman, C.R., Nimmo, D.G. & Ritchie, E.G. (2015) Multiple threats, or multiplying the threats? Interactions between invasive predators and other ecological disturbances. Biological Conservation 190: 60–68.Google Scholar
Dugger, K.M., Anthony, R.G. & Andrews, L.S. (2011) Transient dynamics of invasive competition: barred owls, spotted owls, habitat, and the demons of competition present. Ecological Applications 21: 2459–2468.Google Scholar
Eriksson, M., Sandström, C. & Ericsson, G. (2015) Direct experience and attitude change towards bears and wolves. Wildlife Biology 21: 131–137.Google Scholar
Falk, A. & Szech, N. (2013) Morals and markets. Science 340: 707–712.Google Scholar
Frey, U. (2014) Value assignment in experimental environmental ethics. In: Environmental Ethics: Toward an Empirical Moral Philosophy, eds. Luetge, C., usch, & Uh, M., pp. 112–129. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
de Groot, M., Drenthen, M. & de Groot, W.T. (2011) Public visions of the human/nature relationship and their implications for environmental ethics. Environmental Ethics 33: 25–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haider, S. & Jax, K. (2007) The application of environmental ethics in biological conservation: a case study from the southernmost tip of the Americas. Biodiversity and Conservation 16: 2559–2573.Google Scholar
Heberlein, T.A. & Ericsson, G. (2005) Ties to the countryside: accounting for urbanites attitudes toward hunting, wolves, and wildlife. Human Dimensions of Wildlife 10: 213–227.Google Scholar
Houts, P.S., Doak, C.C., Doak, L.G. & Loscalzo, M.J. (2006) The role of pictures in improving health communication: a review of research on attention, comprehension, recall, and adherence. Patient Education and Counseling 61: 173–190.Google Scholar
Jager, C., Nelson, M.P., Goralnik, L. & Gore, M.L. (2016) Michigan mute swan management: a case study to understand contentious natural resource management issues. Human Dimensions of Wildlife 21: 189–202.Google Scholar
Kalnicky, E.A., Brunson, M.W. & Beard, K.H. (2014) A social–ecological systems approach to non-native species: habituation and its effect on management of coqui frogs in Hawaii. Biological Conservation 180: 187–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karp, D.S., Mendenhall, C.D., Callaway, E., Frishkoff, L.O., Kareiva, P.M., Ehrlich, P.R. & Daily, G.C. (2015) Confronting and resolving competing values behind conservation objectives. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112: 11132–11137.Google Scholar
Kellert, S.R. (1980) American attitudes toward and knowledge of animals. International Journal for the Study of Animal Problems 1: 87–119.Google Scholar
Kellert, S.R., Black, M., Rush, C.R. & Bath, A.J. (1996) Human culture and large carnivore conservation in North America. Conservation Biology 10: 977–990.Google Scholar
Kontogianni, A., Tourkolias, C., Machleras, A. & Skourtos, M. (2012) Service providing units, existence values and the valuation of endangered species: a methodological test. Ecological Economics 79: 97–104.Google Scholar
Kwilosz, J.R. & Knutson, R.L. (1999) Prescribed fire management of Karner blue butterfly habitat at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Natural Areas Journal 19: 98–108.Google Scholar
Lazenby, B.T., Mooney, N.J. & Dickman, C.R. (2014) Effects of low-level culling of feral cats in open populations: a case study from the forests of southern Tasmania. Wildlife Research 41: 407–420.Google Scholar
Levine, N. & Knudson, T. (2012) Animals killed by Wildlife Services nationwide. The Sacramento Bee, April 28, 2012.Google Scholar
Lute, M.L., Bump, A. & Gore, M.L. (2014) Identity-driven differences in stakeholder concerns about hunting wolves. PLoS One 9: e114460.Google Scholar
Lute, M.L. & Gore, M.L. (2014) Stewardship as a path to cooperation? Exploring the role of identity in intergroup conflict among Michigan wolf stakeholders. Human Dimensions of Wildlife 19: 267–279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lute, M.L., Navarrete, C.D., Nelson, M.P. & Gore, M.L. (2016) Assessing morals in conservation: the case of human–wolf conflict. Conservation Biology doi:10.1111/cobi.12731.Google Scholar
Madden, F. & McQuinn, B. (2014) Conservation's blind spot: the case for conflict transformation in wildlife conservation. Biological Conservation 178: 97–106.Google Scholar
Marlow, N.J., Thomas, N.D., Williams, A.A.E., Macmahon, B., Lawson, J., Hitchen, Y. et al. (2015) Cats (Felis catus) are more abundant and are the dominant predator of woylies (Bettongia penicillata) after sustained fox (Vulpes vulpes) control. Australian Journal of Zoology 63: 18–27.Google Scholar
McShane, T.O., Hirsch, P.D., Trung, T.C., Songorwa, A.N., Kinzig, A., Monteferri, B. et al. (2011) Hard choices: making trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and human well-being. Biological Conservation 144: 966–972.Google Scholar
Mech, L.D. (2010) Consideration for developing wolf harvesting regulations in the contiguous United States. International Wolf 20: 4–10.Google Scholar
Messmer, T.A., Brunson, M.W., Reiter, D. & Hewitt, D. G. (1999) United States publics attitudes regarding predators and their management to enhance avian recruitment. Wildlife Society Bulletin 27: 75–85.Google Scholar
Miller, T.R., Minteer, B.A. & Malan, L.C. (2011) The new conservation debate: the view from practical ethics. Biological Conservation 144: 948–957.Google Scholar
Nelson, M.P. (2002) Introduction to environmental ethics. In: Biodiversity Project Ethics for a Small Planet: A Communications Handbook, pp. 40–53. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press and the Biodiversity Project.Google Scholar
Nelson, M.P., Bruskotter, J.T., Vucetich, J.A. & Chapron, G. (2016) Emotions and the ethics of consequence in conservation decisions: lessons from Cecil the Lion. Conservation Letters 9: 302–306.Google Scholar
Nelson, M.P. & Vucetich, J.A. (2012) Environmental ethics and wildlife management. In: Human Dimensions of Wildlife Management, eds. Decker, D.J., Riley, S.J. & Siemer, W.F., pp. 223–237. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Nie, M. (2003) Drivers of natural resource-based political conflict. Policy Sciences 36: 307–341.Google Scholar
Packer, C., Loveridge, A., Canney, S., Caro, T., Garnett, S.T., Pfeifer, M. et al. (2013) Conserving large carnivores: dollars and fence. Ecology Letters 16: 635–641.Google Scholar
Ripple, W.J., Estes, J.A., Beschta, R.L., Wilmers, C.C., Ritchie, E.G., Hebblewhite, M. et al. (2014) Status and ecological effects of the world's largest carnivores. Science 343: 1241484.Google Scholar
Robinson, J.G. (2011) Ethical pluralism, pragmatism, and sustainability in conservation practice. Biological Conservation 144: 958–965.Google Scholar
Sacchi, S., Riva, P., Brambilla, M. & Grasso, M. (2014) Moral reasoning and climate change mitigation: the deontological reaction toward the market-based approach. Journal of Environmental Psychology 38: 252–261.Google Scholar
Safina, C. (2015) Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company.Google Scholar
Slagle, K.M., Bruskotter, J.T. & Wilson, R.S. (2012) The role of affect in public support and opposition to wolf management. Human Dimensions of Wildlife 17: 44–57.Google Scholar
Slovic, P. (2007) ‘If I look at the mass I will never act’: psychic numbing and genocide. Judgment and Decision Making 2: 79–95.Google Scholar
Soulé, M. (2013) The ‘new conservation’. Conservation Biology 27: 895–897.Google Scholar
Thøgersen, J. (2004) A cognitive dissonance interpretation of consistencies and inconsistencies in environmentally responsible behavior. Journal of Environmental Psychology 24: 93–103.Google Scholar
Tisdell, C., Wilson, C. & Nantha, H.S. (2005) Association of public support for survival of wildlife species with their likeability. Anthrozoos 18: 160–174.Google Scholar
U.S. Census Bureau (2010) U.S. Quickfacts [www document]. URL http://quickfacts.census.gov Google Scholar
Verbrugge, L.N., Van den Born, R.J.G. & Lenders, H.J. R. (2013) Exploring public perception of non-native species from a visions of nature perspective. Environmental Management 53: 1562–1573.Google Scholar
Vucetich, J.A., Bruskotter, J.T. & Nelson, M.P. (2015) Evaluating whether nature's intrinsic value is an axiom of or anathema to conservation. Conservation Biology 29: 321–332.Google Scholar
Vucetich, J.A. & Nelson, M.P. (2007) What are 60 warblers worth? Killing in the name of conservation. Oikos 116: 1267–1278.Google Scholar
Way, J. & Bruskotter, J.T. (2012) Additional considerations for gray wolf management after their removal from endangered species act protections. Journal of Wildlife Management & Wildlife Monographs 76: 457–461.Google Scholar
Williams, R. (2006) Generalized ordered logit/partial proportional odds models for ordinal dependent variables. Stata Journal 6: 58–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Lute supplementary material

Appendix S1

Download Lute supplementary material(File)
File 241.4 KB
Supplementary material: File

Lute supplementary material

Appendix S2

Download Lute supplementary material(File)
File 9.1 MB