Students’ Attitudes to and Knowledge of Brown Bears (Ursus arctos L.): Can More Knowledge Reduce Fear and Assist in Conservation Efforts? (original) (raw)
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Primary school students’ awareness of and attitudes toward local threatened animals
Human Dimensions of Wildlife, 2023
Human actions threaten animal species with extinction at an accelerating rate. Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE) is a key factor in tackling biodiversity loss by preparing future citizens to undertake conservation actions. This study deals with the awareness and the attitudes of 401 primary school students toward wild animals, focusing on local threatened species. Although students appear to have a satisfactory level of awareness of wild animals, they are significantly less aware of local species and confused regarding threatened ones. Bird species gain the lowest recognition. Habitat transformation and climate change are not well-known threats. Students have primarily naturalistic, and ecologistic attitudes. They like animals mainly due to their perceived appearance, intelligence and being in danger of extinction, while they dislike them based on the threat they pose to humans and other animals. The findings can inspire ESE practitioners to develop effective educational programs for wild animal conservation.
Sustainability
Teaching in a formal learning environment mainly focuses on gaining knowledge, and scarcely on the development of pro-environmental attitudes. Knowledge can also be gained in informal learning institutions, such as zoos, and their potential use in general public education should not be neglected. This paper explores factors influencing the conservation beliefs of zoo visitors about brown bears, grey wolves, and Eurasian lynx. The study undertaken in Zoo Ljubljana (Slovenia) consisted of surveys performed in 2009 (n = 613) and in 2021 (n = 257). The levels of knowledge and education influenced both supporting and opposing beliefs about the three large carnivore species. The gender factor was less uniform: both supporting and opposing beliefs about lynx were demonstrated, but only opposing beliefs about brown bear and wolf. The study indicates that knowledge has the most significant influence on conservation beliefs, thus highlighting the importance of educational and communication ac...
Assessing factors influencing students’ perceptions towards animal species conservation
PeerJ
Background The way humans perceive and interact with non-human animals is particular to each person, from antipathetic interactions evidenced by fear, aversion or repulsion, to empathy evidenced by feelings of affection, enchantment and interest in the animal. In this sense, herein we investigated the perception of university students about species belonging to different classes of wild vertebrates and the influence of social and educational factors on that. Methods Data were obtained through online forms answered by 700 university students from nine Brazilian states, 328 females and 372 males, aged between 18 and 65 years. The form had eight sentences to be answered in relation to 17 species of wild vertebrates. The agreement level for each of these sentences was to be indicated using a five-point Likert scale. The sentences were designed to assess aesthetic, risk, utilitarian, and preservation perceptions attributed to each species by students. Results We found that species percei...
Sustainability
The acceptance of large carnivores is one of the key issues for their conservation. We analyzed the level acceptance of brown bears (Ursus arctos Linnaeus, 1758) amongst 10–18 year old school students in four European countries using anonymous questionnaires. Our aim was to characterize the drivers of species acceptance, described as a rural–urban cline, as well as fear levels and the respondents’ familiarity with bears. We found lower levels of acceptance of bears were related to fear of bears and that bear acceptance was not higher in the bear-inhabited countries, but urban inhabitants tended to better accept the species. Factor analysis revealed the importance of country-related aspects, familiarity with bears, experiences in human-wildlife conflict, gender-age differences, respondent’s relationship to nature and the origin of their knowledge of the species. We consider that bear-related education and mass media in Latvia and Lithuania could reduce fear of these animals and susta...
Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
Background The origin of different human emotions directed towards animals (whether in the utilitarian, affective, conflictual, or cosmological context) is strongly influenced by sociocultural factors, although our genetic predispositions also play an important role in the origin of these emotions. Such emotions guide people’s representations of different species, which in turn affect their attitudes toward them. For this reason, understanding the factors that guide such attitudes becomes a key element in making conservationist decisions. In this sense, the main objective of this study was to analyze how sociocultural characteristics and bioecological representations can influence students’ attitudes of empathy or antipathy towards vertebrate species; as well as which classes and species are related to greater and lesser support in people for their conservation. Methods To do so, 667 interviews were conducted with students from urban (n = 1) and rural (n = 2) schools in the Brazilia...
The Vocational Upper Secondary Schools Students’ Knowledge and Their Attitudes Toward Wolves
Journal of Baltic Science Education
Wolf (Canis lupus) conservation is multidimensional. Its aspects include the consensus between different interest groups. The present research aimed to assess the attitude and knowledge of the students (N = 483 students from three schools age 14-19) enrolled in the environmentalist, veterinary and agricultural technician study programmes through a questionnaire, as their profession represents a part of this multidimensional consensus. The research results indicate that students have neutral to positive attitudes toward wolves, generally. Their knowledge of wolves, however, is limited. Agricultural technicians showed the most negative attitudes toward wolves and the lowest knowledge. Overall, correlations between all attitudinal dimensions and correlations between attitudinal dimensions and knowledge were found, with the highest correlations between conservation dimension and all other dimensions including knowledge. The research findings support the widespread assumption that educat...
Slovenian Students’ Knowledge and Opinions about Wild Boar (Sus ScrofaL.)
Anthrozoös, 2018
Wild boar are present almost throughout Slovenia, causing similar problems as in many other countries, mainly damage to agriculture. Dealing with these problems also involves children. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of age, gender, and farm residence on knowledge, attitudes, and opinions about wild boar management in 11-and 15-year-olds (n = 478) attending schools in/near areas of high wild boar densities, via an anonymous closed-ended questionnaire. Only 52.4% of the questions on factual knowledge were answered correctly, although a relatively high proportion of students (38.3%) reported having seen wild boar in their natural environment. The majority of students (81.4%) expressed affection toward animals in general, while only 11.3% stated that they liked wild boar. The main source of information about these animals was home (40.0%), followed by school (26.1%). Logistic regression analysis revealed that students' age and gender usually predicted their response (p < 0.05), while living on a farm influenced only the source of information and one attitude question: farm residents were more likely to express affection toward wild boar. The older students were more likely to know more about wild boar, but they also were more likely to be indifferent toward the species. Boys and girls did not differ in their knowledge, but girls were more likely to express fear/dislike of wild boar. In general, older students and girls were more likely to be undecided in their responses. Since we found almost no effect of farm residence on students' knowledge and opinions, it can be concluded that wild boar problems are recognized generally, not only in agriculture. Because information from home can be biased, we propose that teachers be encouraged to include wild boar topics in their teaching, educating young people properly about wild boar problems and consequently influencing their adult behavior concerning management issues.
Questionnaires are important tools for assessing attitudes regarding conservation issues. However, they are not easily comparable and their reliability has been insufficiently assessed. We examined factors influencing responses to open- and closed-ended questions about animal conservation to more than 600 schoolchildren (9 years old on average). We analysed the level of understanding, controllable (e.g. sample size) and less controllable factors (e.g. affectivity). Most children responded appropriately to the questions, but subtle changes in the phrasing influenced the answers. Affectivity towards endearing species and spontaneity also influenced the responses whereas small sample sizes (∼50 children) provided relatively stable patterns. Overall, we suggest that standardization of questionnaires administered over large spatial and time scales is needed to accurately assess children's attitudes towards conservation issues.
Public attitudes towards brown bears ( Ursus arctos) in Slovenia
Biological Conservation, 2004
In northern Slovenia a radical change in brown bear (Ursus arctos) management – from a policy of bear suppression to a policy of bear protection – resulted in a sharp increase in sheep predation by bears. In the bear core area in southern Slovenia, on the other hand, bears have always been present, cause little damage and are an important game species. This zoned management provided a quasi “natural experiment” to compare attitudes and knowledge between two areas of different bear history, management and damage level. Using a questionnaire survey we sampled 924 locals and 177 hunters in the two areas. Contrary to our expectation, we documented a very positive attitude towards bears, in both study areas and for both target groups. Apparently, regional differences in the damage level per se and the status as a game species are not the driving force shaping attitudes towards bears in Slovenia. The key factor in predicting the attitude towards bears was the perception of how harmful the bears are. Knowledge and socio-demographic factors were only of minor importance. Even though attitude towards bears was positive, support of the present policy of bear expansion was low.
A Theoretical Basis for Evaluating Wildlife-Related Education Programs
The American Biology Teacher, 1992
OVERALL, animals rank high in the favorite interests of children (Badaracco 1973, Bart 1972, Collins 1976, Finley 1921). Therefore, it is no surprise that lessons on animals easily capture the imagination of young students, particularly when live specimens are used (Gantert 1966, Schultz 1967, Swingler 1965). Because these programs involve multi-sensory stimuli, they usually elicit varied responses from students, many of which are positive. As a result, classroom teachers are led to believe that these exposures are worthwhile and, therefore, "feel" education is taking place. Hendee (1972) has labeled this intuitive process as "folklore" and warned against using it to validate the success of environmental education programs. Instead, he and Yager (1978) advocated the use of research to determine if affective and cognitive goals have been met. Adams and Thomas (1986, p. 480) defined wildlife education as, "Those teaching and learning processes that introduce information about specific wildlife resources, habitats, ecological relationships, conservation, and management strategies into public school and community educational programs." To be worthwhile, this process should result in positive changes in knowledge, attitudes, awareness and actions toward wildlife. However, based on reported research in the environmental literature, it is uncertain which methods can best accomplish the previously stated goals (Knapp 1972). Recent attempts by researchers to explain the educational effectiveness of programs using animals have met with differing results (Adams, Newgard & Thomas 1986; Kress 1975; LaHart 1981; Moore 1983; Morgan & Gramann 1989). Of particular interest to this study is the development of human orientations toward wildlife. Two typologies have recently emerged in the literature that focus on young people's attitudes toward animals (Kellert 1985; Adams et al. 1986). Kellert (1985) stratified Connecticut children according to nine different wildlife orientations: naturalistic, ecologistic, humanistic, moralistic, scientistic, aesthetic, utilitarian, dominionistic and negativis-tic. Adams et al. (1986) developed a model based on the Triandis (1971) theory that incorporates feelings, beliefs and actions. Respondents were divided to approximate Adair's (LaHart & Tillis 1974) four dimensions of social behavior: action, satisfaction, frustration and apathy. These typologies are useful; however, they have some limitations that include: