Intention to kill: Tolerance and illegal persecution of Sumatran tigers and sympatric species (original) (raw)
Related papers
Oryx, 2022
Illegal killing of wildlife is a major conservation issue that, to be addressed effectively, requires insight into the drivers of human behaviour. Here we adapt an established socio-psychological model, the theory of planned behaviour, to explore reasons for hunting the Endangered Bewick's swan Cygnus columbianus bewickii in the European Russian Arctic, using responses from hunters to a questionnaire survey. Wider ecological, legal, recreational and economic motivations were also explored. Of 236 hunters who participated overall, 14% harboured intentions to hunt Bewick's swan. Behavioural intention was predicted by all components of the theory of planned behaviour, specifically: hunters' attitude towards the behaviour, perceived behavioural control (i.e. perceived capability of being able to perform the behaviour) and their subjective norms (perception of social expectations). The inclusion of attitude towards protective laws and descriptive norm (perception of whether other people perform the behaviour) increased the model's predictive power. Understanding attitudes towards protective laws can help guide the design of conservation measures that reduce non-compliance. We conclude that conservation interventions should target the sociopsychological conditions that influence hunters' attitudes, social norms and perceived behavioural control. These may include activities that build trust, encourage support for conservation, generate social pressure against poaching, use motivations to prompt change and strengthen peoples' confidence to act. This approach could be applied to inform the effective design, prioritization and targeting of interventions that improve compliance and reduce the illegal killing of wildlife.
Conservation and human behaviour: Lessons from social psychology
2010
Despite increased effort from non-governmental organisations, academics and governments over recent decades, several threats continue to cause species declines and even extinctions. Resource use by a growing human population is a significant driver of biodiversity loss, so conservation scientists need to be interested in the factors that motivate human behaviour. Economic models have been applied to human decision making for many years; however, humans are not financially rational beings and other characteristics of the decision maker (including attitude) and the pressure that people perceive to behave in a certain way (subjective norms) may influence decision making; these are characteristics considered by social psychologists interested in human decision making. We review social-psychology theories of behaviour and how they have been used in the context of conservation and natural-resource management. Many studies focus on general attitudes towards conservation rather than attitudes towards specific behaviours of relevance to conservation and thus have limited value in designing interventions to change specific behaviours (e.g. reduce hunting of a threatened species). By more specifically defining the behaviour of interest, and investigating attitude in the context of other social-psychological predictors of behaviour (e.g. subjective norms, the presence of facilitating factors and moral obligation), behaviours that have an impact on conservation goals will be better understood, allowing for the improved design of interventions to influence them.
Key factors driving attitudes towards large mammals in conflict with humans
Biological Conservation, 2014
Biodiversity conflicts, and human-wildlife conflicts (HWC) in particular, are predicted to increase. Understanding drivers of these conflicts is a prerequisite for developing strategies to achieve conservation goals. People are a part of all HWC problems meaning social research methods are essential for finding solutions. We conducted a meta-analysis of the variables predicted to drive attitudes of people living in areas with damage causing carnivores, ungulates, elephants and primates so as to determine if common patterns of variables are present across a wide range of contexts. We categorized variables reported in publications into main and sub-categories and developed three indexes to describe relative frequency of category use, relative significance of categories and degree of accuracy between use and significance. From 45 suitable publications, 16 main categories and 17 sub-categories were identified. The majority of publications measured variables with a low likelihood of explaining drivers of HWC, or did not quantify variables of generally high utility. For example, only four categories (25%) were applied in over 50% of publications, and two thirds were mostly not significant in explaining attitudes. Tangible costs and tangible benefits thought to be the main drivers of attitudes were respectively, two and three times more nonsignificant than significant. Intangible costs however were the most important category to explain attitudes but was under represented in publications. Intangible benefits were mostly not important in explaining attitudes. Costs were more significant than benefits suggesting negative perceptions more strongly determine attitudes. Other important categories were exposure and experience with a species, stakeholder types and legal status of land. Socio-demographic variables commonly used in published studies such as gender, education and wealth, poorly explained attitudes. We conclude that greater conceptual clarity is urgently required to guide future attitude studies so that research can reliably inform the development of species management plans and policies.
Control hunting of wild animals: health, money, or pleasure?
European Journal of Wildlife Research, 2017
In many parts of the world, millions of wildlife species are hunted for sport, food, skins, and other products. In recent years, a backlash has emerged from certain groups of society against this long-standing human pursuit. However, attitudes towards the control of wild animals to reduce the health risk to other animals, to lessen agricultural damage, or to protect game species, may generate a different reaction, where even killing is tolerated. In this paper, we analyze the public’s acceptance of control hunting in Andalusia (southern Spain). Our results suggest that lethal control to improve domestic animal health is highly accepted (75%) is more controversial when animals are killed for damaging crops (59% acceptance) and is highly unaccepted when the goal is to enhance game species numbers (22% acceptance). Older people and males, in particular, accept more readily some of these control-hunting measures. These results are needed to understand better the public attitudes on which conservation managers can base their decisions when control hunting is required.
Utility of a psychological framework for carnivore conservation
Oryx, 2012
Conserving threatened carnivore species increasingly depends on the capacity of local people to cohabit with those species. To examine such capacity we developed a novel psychological framework for conservation in regions of the world where there are human-carnivore conflicts, and used the Endangered tiger Panthera tigris to explore the utility of this framework. Specifically, we tested three hypotheses in Chitwan National Park, Nepal, where increasing human-tiger conflicts potentially jeopardize long-term coexistence. We administered a survey to 499 individuals living , 2 km from the Park and in nearby multiple-use forest, to record preferred future tiger population size and factors that may influence preferences, including past interactions with tigers (e.g. livestock predation) and beliefs and perceptions about tigers. Over 17% of respondents reported that a tiger had attacked their livestock or threatened them directly. Results from a structural equation model indicated that respondents who preferred fewer tigers in the future were less likely to associate tigers with beneficial attributes, more likely to associate tigers with undesirable attributes, and more likely to believe that government officials poorly manage tiger-related risks and that people are vulnerable to risks from tigers. Our framework can help address current and future conservation challenges because it (1) integrates an expansive and generalized set of psychological concepts, (2) enables the identification of conservation interventions that foster coexistence between people and carnivores, and (3) is suitable for broad application.
2017
At the end of January 2014, the Indonesian Ulama Council announced a fatwa on Wildlife Conservaton for the Balance of the Ecosystem. In Aceh province, Islam is strongly adhered to and it is expected that the fatwa would be benefcial to conservaton in the province. We tested the effect of this fatwa in relaton to attude, norm and percepton of the communites in relaton to conservaton initatves. The study was conducted at the villages of Ulu Masen, Keumala Damlam and Pidie Jaya in April, 2015. The result of t test then partally there is signifcant relaton (signifcance) between attude, norm and behavior with intenton with value p 0.05. In the F test results together to four independent variables have a signifcant relatonship (signifcance) that is the value p 0,000 < 0,05. In the summary model there is a R number of 0.668. This shows that there is a good relatonship between the four variables with the intenton. While on the determinaton analysis R² illustrates all the independent varia...
Biodiversity and Conservation, 2006
Wildlife management policies are often based on expert perceptions of the ecological importance of certain species and poorly informed perceptions of how public attitudes toward management are formed. Little is known about why preferences vary greatly and how this affects support for management actions. This paper explores preferences for a range of wildlife species among a sample of the rural population adjacent to Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. We also examine the degree of acceptance for alternative management interventions when potentially dangerous animals pose different levels of problems to human beings, and the extent to which these attitudes are related to species preferences. Gender has a significant effect on species preferences. Men like most species better than women. Age has no significant effect, but level of education affects preference level for some species. Species preferences have a positive effect on support for management intervention when dangerous animals cause small or moderate problems to humans, i.e. there is a higher degree of acceptance of problems caused by animals that are well liked. In situations where human life is threatened, species preferences have no effect on preferred management actions. Appreciation of animals is a combination of functional, consumptive and cultural dimensions, and there is no simple link between species preferences and attitudes toward management actions. The local context and concrete experience with wildlife encounters is more important for shaping normative beliefs like attitudes towards management actions than global wildlife attitudes.
Human Dimensions of Wildlife, 1997
Framed in the cognitive hierarchy approach, we examine (1) the mediating effect of general environmenrat atritudes and (2) the moderating effect of facrual wildlife knowledge on the relarionship berween values and specific wildlife attitudes (wildlife species prorec-(ion). These relarionships are assessed across four wildlife consrinrent groups: ( I) consumprive users (anglers and hunters), (2) birders (a nonconsumptive user group), (3) non-hunters, non-anglers, and nonbirders (nonusers), and (4) combined consumprive and nonconsumptive users (anglers, hunters and birders). Twelve hundred and rwenry residents of rhe Southern Appalachians completed a telephone sumey during Ihe summer of 1335. Overall, respondents demonstrated low knowledge but favorable attirudes regarding wildlife species protection. Resuhs provided panial support for a cognitive hierarchy in which general artirudes mediate the relationship between values and specific attitudes, and the existence of knowledge 3s 3n external moderating variables. Results are discussed in the context or information-processing theories and implications for developing effective fish and wildlife communicarion araregies are considered.