Attitudes of College Undergraduates Towards Coyotes (Canis latrans) in an Urban Landscape: Management and Public Outreach Implications.
Understanding and assessing the public's attitudes towards urban wildlife is an important step towards creating management plans, increasing knowledge and awareness, and fostering coexistence between people and wildlife. We conducted a survey of undergraduate college students in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area-where coyotes are recent arrivals-to determine existing attitudes towards coyotes and coyote management methods. Amongst other findings, we found that the more a person feared coyotes, the less likely they were to support their presence (p < 0.001), and the less likely they were to believe that pet owners should be directly responsible for protecting their pets (p < 0.001). Respondents demonstrated major gaps in their understanding of basic coyote biology and ecology. Respondents broke wildlife management practices into two categories: those that involved an action on coyotes (both lethal or non-lethal; referred to as "Coyote"), and those that restricted human behavior (referred to as "Human"); the "Human" methods were preferred. We found important differences between key demographic groups in terms of attitudes and management preferences. Our study suggests that wildlife professionals have unique opportunities in urban areas to prevent and reduce conflict before it escalates, in part by targeting tailored outreach messages to various demographic and social groups.
Virginia Tech Center for Leadership in Global Sustainability, College of Natural Resources & Environment, Virginia Tech, 900 N. Glebe Road, Arlington, VA 22203, USA. Megan.Draheim@gmail.com.
Megan M
MM
Draheim
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA. kpatter3@gmu.edu.
Katheryn W
KW
Patterson
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA. lrockwoo@gmu.edu.
Larry L
LL
Rockwood
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA. gguagnan@gmu.edu.
Gregory A
GA
Guagnano
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA. eparson1@gmu.edu.
E Christien M
EC
Parsons
Canis latrans; attitudes towards wildlife; human-wildlife conflict; human-wildlife interactions; urban wildlife