Investigation of the social framing of human-shark interactions may provide useful strategies for integrating social, biological, and ecological knowledge into national and international policy discussions about shark conservation. One way to investigate social opinion and forces related to sharks and their conservation is through the media's coverage of sharks. We conducted a content analysis of 300 shark-related articles published in 20 major Australian and U.S. newspapers from 2000 to 2010. Shark attacks were the emphasis of over half the articles analyzed, and shark conservation was the primary topic of 11% of articles. Significantly more Australian articles than U.S. articles treated shark attacks (χ(2) = 3.862; Australian 58% vs. U.S. 47%) and shark conservation issues (χ(2) = 6.856; Australian 15% vs. U.S. 11%) as the primary article topic and used politicians as the primary risk messenger (i.e., primary person or authority sourced in the article) (χ(2) = 7.493; Australian 8% vs. U.S. 1%). However, significantly more U.S. articles than Australian articles discussed sharks as entertainment (e.g., subjects in movies, books, and television; χ(2) = 15.130; U.S. 6% vs. Australian 1%) and used scientists as the primary risk messenger (χ(2) = 5.333; U.S. 25% vs. Australian 15%). Despite evidence that many shark species are at risk of extinction, we found that most media coverage emphasized the risks sharks pose to people. To the extent that media reflects social opinion, our results highlight problems for shark conservation. We suggest that conservation professionals purposefully and frequently engage with the media to highlight the rarity of shark attacks, discuss preventative measures water users can take to reduce their vulnerability to shark encounters, and discuss conservation issues related to local and threatened species of sharks. When integrated with biological and ecological data, social-science data may help generate a more comprehensive perspective and inform conservation practice.

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The growing complexity and global nature of wildlife poaching threaten the survival of many species worldwide and are outpacing conservation efforts. Here, we reviewed proximal and distal factors, both social and ecological, driving illegal killing or poaching of large carnivores at sites where it can potentially occur. Through this review, we developed a conceptual social–ecological system framework that ties together many of the factors influencing large carnivore poaching. Unlike most conservation action models, an important attribute of our framework is the integration of multiple factors related to both human motivations and animal vulnerability into feedbacks. We apply our framework to two case studies, tigers in Laos and wolverines in northern Sweden, to demonstrate its utility in disentangling some of the complex features of carnivore poaching that may have hindered effective responses to the current poaching crisis. Our framework offers a common platform to help guide future research on wildlife poaching feedbacks, which has hitherto been lacking, in order to effectively inform policy making and enforcement.

On 19 August 2002 an infant was fatally injured by a black bear (Ursus americanus) in Fallsburg, New York. Based on the social amplification of risk theory, we anticipated that media coverage of the incident would affect perceived bear‐related risk among residents in New York's black bear range. We compared results from a pre‐incident mail survey (March 2002; n = 3,000) and a post‐incident telephone survey (September 2002; n = 302) of New York residents in the same geographic regions to determine whether perception of personal risk (i.e., the perceived probability of experiencing a threatening encounter with a black bear) had changed as a result of the infant death. Additionally, we performed content analysis of news stories published between 19 August and 19 September 2002 (n = 45) referencing the incident. The proportion of respondents who believed the risk of being threatened by a bear was acceptably low increased after the incident (81% pre‐incident vs. 87% post‐incident), corresponding with an increase in print media coverage of black bears during the month following the incident. The majority of media coverage noted the rarity of human fatalities caused by black bears. Stability in risk perception may have been reinforced by media coverage that uniformly characterized the risk of a bear attack as extremely low. Alternatively, existing perceptions of black bear‐related risk may have been reinforced by the short‐term nature of media coverage after the incident. The fatality did not serve as a focus event that motivated stakeholder groups to promote change in wildlife management policy. Additional bear‐related fatalities, however, could create the impetus for a change in risk perception via a social amplification of risk. Wildlife managers should be aware of potential media effects on risk perception and recognize the potential for risk communication to improve the congruence between actual and perceived risk.

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Outreach programs are interventions that have the potential to influence the unique context of human-wildlife conflict as well as the political, economic, and social systems within which human-wildlife conflict occurs. However, evaluation of these programs is limited. The purpose of this research was to determine a human-wildlife conflict outreach intervention's effect on environmentally responsible behavior using the case of human-black bear conflict in New York, The New York NeighBEARhood Watch Program, and the Elaboration Likelihood Model. We found no short-term evidence of environmentally responsible behavior change after the program was implemented. We discuss inhibitors of desired program impact and the utility of our evaluation framework to measure program effect. Given the staying power of outreach interventions and their unknown effects on mitigating human-wildlife conflict, it is imperative that evaluation of programs be a required part of their implementation. Results presented herein can advance discussion about the role of outreach interventions by highlighting assumptions, realistic expectations, and outcome measures.

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