Harry C. Zinn

Using normative beliefs to determine the acceptability of wildlife management actions

Because wildlife in the United States is publicly owned, management actions and policies depend on public acceptance. This article uses a normative approach to describe and evaluate what the public believes are acceptable management actions toward three different wildlife species involved in human‐wildlife interactions. The results illustrate the extent to which normative beliefs about wildlife management actions are influenced by situational specifics and wildlife value orientations. Across different species and situations, individuals with protectionist wildlife values were less willing than those with pro‐use wildlife values to accept destroying an animal. The results point to circumstances that are likely to generate intense conflict over particular management policies and allow more confident generalization about how publics will respond to different management actions. Additional research is needed to identify the situational specifics and human values that best explain and predict normative beliefs...

Values, Gender, and Concern about Potentially Dangerous Wildlife

In this study, the authors investigated wildlife value orientations, gender, and concern about risks posed by a large, potentially dangerous predator—the mountain lion. A survey (58% response rate) was used to collect data from a random sample of adult residents (N = 2,469) in Colorado metropolitan areas. Both gender and parental role predicted concern about being attacked. Women expressed greater concern than men, and participants with children living at home expressed greater concern than participants without children at home. Participants with utilitarian values were more likely than those with protectionist ones to accept destroying a lion in a residential area, and men were more likely than women to accept destroying it. Additional research is needed to understand why women perceived more risk from a mountain lion but were less willing to accept destroying it, as well as to understand the relationships among gender, parental role, and environmental risk concern.

INTEGRATING WILDLIFE AND HUMAN-DIMENSIONS RESEARCH METHODS TO STUDY HUNTERS

Abstract Recreational hunting is the primary management tool used by natural resource agencies to control ungulate populations. Although free-ranging ungulates have been studied extensively in North America, relatively little is known about the field behavior of hunters or the factors that influence hunting behavior, except on small study areas where access is limited and controlled. We developed 3 integrated protocols to estimate hunter density, distribution, movements, habitat use, characteristics, and attitudes, which can be used on large areas with unrestricted access. We described how aerial surveys, in conjunction with distance sampling techniques and a Geographic Information System (GIS) database of landscape characteristics, provide estimates of hunter density and a map of hunter distribution and habitat use. We used Global Positioning System (GPS) units issued to hunters to systematically record hunter locations. Hunters also completed a simple questionnaire. We linked these data and used them to obtain detailed information on habitat use, movements, and activity patterns. Whereas aerial surveys are limited to discrete points in time and relate only to aggregations of hunters, data collected on hunters that carry GPS units can be used to study habitat use and distribution at different times of day for individual hunters. Finally, linked responses from a traditional mail or telephone survey to hunter location data collected via GPS units to assess how hunter characteristics (e.g., age, physical condition, attitudes) were related to field behavior. We applied these techniques during a white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) hunting season on a large tract (45,749 ha) of public land in Pennsylvania, USA, with unrestricted hunter access. We estimated density of 7 hunters/1,000 ha (95% CI: 4.2 to 10.3) in the morning and 6.3 hunters/1,000 ha (95% CI: 3.5 to 10.0) in the afternoon. We found that hunter density was negatively related to distance from roads and slope. Most hunters preferred stand hunting, especially in the early morning hours (0600–0800 hr; 72% stationary); more walked or stalked in the afternoon (1400–1600 hr; 58% stationary). The average maximum distance hunters reached from a road open to public vehicles was 0.84 km (SE = 0.03), and they walked an average of 5.48 km (SE = 0.193) during their daily hunting activities. We believe that the approaches we used for studying hunter behavior will be useful for understanding the connections between hunter attitudes and behavior and hence will allow managers to predict hunter response to changes in harvest regulations. Furthermore, our methods are more accurate than requesting hunters to self-report where they hunted. For example, we found that hunters reported that they walked >2.5 times farther from the nearest road (x̄ = 2.23 km, SE = 0.13) than actual distance recorded via GPS units (x̄ = 0.84 km, SE = 0.03). Our research provides wildlife managers with new knowledge on several levels. At the most basic level, we learned a great deal about what hunters actually do while in the field, rather than simply what they report. Second, linking field behavior with hunter characteristics will provide insights into the likely effects of changing hunter demographics. Finally, linking these data with traditional human-dimensions research topics, such as attitudes toward hunting regulations, may allow managers to better forecast the potential effects of regulation changes on hunter distribution and effort.

Ethnicity as a Variable in Leisure Research

The purpose of this study is to examine the usefulness of ethnicity as a construct in leisure research. In particular, we are interested in the degree to which presumed ethnic groups exhibit internal cultural homogeneity. In 2002, the visitors to the Angeles National Forest (ANF) near metropolitan Los Angeles were surveyed. Using purposive sampling at sites known to be heavily used by visitors with diverse ethnic backgrounds, we obtained a sample of 444 Anglos, 312 Hispanics, and 319 Asians (overall n = 1,174). We examined whether the three nominal ethnic groups, Anglos, Hispanics, and Asians, were homogeneous in terms of cultural values as measured by Hofstedes (1980) instrument. We assume that if distinctive ethnic subcultures exist then they should be identifiable by specific measures of languages, religion, family structure, cultural values, and the like. We used cultural consensus analyses to test the homogeneity of the three ethnic groups. The results of cultural consensus analyses showed that none of the three ethnic groups and none of the subgroups we examined within the three ethnic groups were homogeneous in terms of the cultural values. Discussion of the findings and research implications are suggested.

Standards for lethal response to problem urban wildlife

Abstract Managers face limited options when dealing with problems created by urban wildlife. Destroying an animal that is perceived to be a nuisance is sometimes acceptable; at other times destroying the animal may be controversial. This paper uses the structural norm approach to develop standards for an agencys use of lethal response to problem urban wildlife. The paper describes three structural characteristics of public wildlife management norms (range of acceptable situations, norm intensity, and norm agreement) and shows how these standards may be affected by different situational contexts (impact severity) and different animal species. Three wildlife species (beavers, coyotes, and mountain lions) are examined across a continuum of situation contexts ranging from seeing wildlife in a residential area to an animal killing a person. For all three species, acceptability of destroying the animal increased as the impact severity of the human‐wildlife interaction increased. For identical situations, howev...

Patterns of Wildlife Value Orientations in Hunters' Families

Public value orientations toward wildlife may be growing less utilitarian and more protectionist. To better understand one aspect of this trend, we investigated patterns of wildlife value orientations within families. Using a mail survey, we sampled Pennsylvania and Colorado hunting license holders 50 or older, obtaining a 54% response rate ( n = 599). Males (94% of sample) reported their own basic beliefs about wildlife and perceptions of the basic beliefs of their mothers, fathers, spouses, oldest sons, and oldest daughters. A majority approved of wildlife use and hunting but not wildlife rights. Males were least likely to perceive differences between their own beliefs and those of their fathers and sons and most likely to perceive differences between their own beliefs and those of their daughters. Respondents who perceived most differences were likely to report moderate utilitarian value orientations and to have grown up in urban areas, lived in more than one state, and attended college. Results link values shifts to three current trends: urbanization, residential mobility, and increasing education. To the extent that wildlife value orientations are changing, wildlife management agencies must adapt to that change. Future studies should measure beliefs of multiple family members and use both quantitative and qualitative approaches to understanding values transmission.

Social psychological bases for Stakeholder acceptance Capacity

Abstract Wildlife managers often encounter stakeholder groups with differing beliefs about ideal population levels of wildlife and appropriate management actions toward wildlife. For example, hunters, farmers, foresters, and suburban homeowners often express different acceptance capacities for white‐tailed deer. Similarly, stakeholder groups often differ over managing Canada geese, black‐tailed prairie dogs, beaver, and other species. Understanding and responding to these different preferences is essential to the successful management of publicly owned wildlife. Researchers have examined beliefs about wildlife populations from perspectives including cultural carrying capacity, overabundance, risk perception, wildlife acceptance capacity, and normative beliefs. Each approach has contributed to our understanding of how beliefs about ideal wildlife population levels are based on a complex interaction among internal, psychological variables (values, beliefs); behavioral variables (occupation, past experience with wildlife); and situational specifics (wildlife species, abundance, management actions). A normative approach, based on social psychologys hierarchical model of human thought, can help explain and predict the determinants and consequences of stakeholder acceptance capacity. Research using the normative approach demonstrates how stakeholder acceptance capacity for wildlife populations and management actions can be influenced by psychological, behavioral, and situational variables. Additional investigation of stakeholder acceptance capacity and its determinants will allow for more confident generalization about stakeholder responses to different wildlife population levels and management actions, and will help identify conditions that are likely to generate intense conflict among stakeholder groups.

A Cross-Regional Comparison of Recreation Patterns of Older Hunters

We studied outdoor recreation patterns among older hunting license holders in Pennsylvania and Colorado to better understand aspects of five trends that promise to impact outdoor recreation preferences, behavior, and management priorities: Sunbelt population growth, declining residential stability, urbanization, aging, and increasing levels of formal education. Results of our mail survey showed that the samples were similar in age, gender, and ethnicity, but Pennsylvania respondents were more likely to have lived their entire lives in the state and had spent more of their adult lives in rural areas. On the other hand, Pennsylvania respondents were less likely to have attended school beyond high school. Pennsylvania respondents hunted more frequently and were more likely to gather wild foods. Colorado respondents were more likely to fish, and they participated in more nonconsumptive activities. Education, rural/urban differences, and residential stability had a limited ability to predict differences in consumptive activities. Age, education, and residential stability predicted differences in nonconsumptive activities. Results suggest that cultural differences between regions may be more important than socio-demographic characteristics for understanding of outdoor recreation patterns in the past, present, and future.

An Exploration of Meanings of Leisure: A Chinese Perspective

In the West, the awareness of the important role of leisure in people’s lives has grown significantly since World War II. Leisure studies has been an academic field in the United States for the past six decades. The first undergraduate curriculum in recreation was established in the 1940s, and the first graduate program in recreation with M.S. degree was approved in 1953 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Since then, the study of leisure has also developed in Western Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and mainland China and captured the interest of scholars in various fields including sociology, anthropology, psychology, social psychology, economics, forestry and political science. The field of leisure studies has contributed to a significant growth in knowledge about leisure but the scope of this knowledge remains limited. In particular, few scholars have

Wildlife Value Orientations in China

The wildlife value orientation (WVO) construct has been used to describe deeply held beliefs about how humans should relate to wildlife. As part of a larger effort to test the usefulness of the WVO construct across cultures, we conducted pilot testing of the construct in China. A conceptual and methodological framework developed by the projects international research team was used to collect and analyze data. Specific modifications were made for Chinas study. We conducted sixteen mixed-method interviews in five cities/towns in China. Participants included individuals from both rural and urban areas with equal numbers of men and women. The results provided supporting evidence for all hypothesized WVO dimensions. Inter-rater reliabilities were reported and representative quotations illustrating each WVO concept were presented. In particular, we discussed the prevalence of materialism in relation to the emerging mutualistic thinking in contemporary China. As a conclusion, we provided our evaluation of the utility of WVO concept as well as the research method.