An understanding of children’s environmental orientations is of critical importance as opportunities for authentic contact with nature diminish. Current instruments for measuring children’s environmental attitudes are complex, and few have been tested across diverse audiences. This study employed a mixed-methods approach that included pilot tests, final survey implementation, and interviews to create a survey instrument for assessing the environmental attitudes and awareness of children ( N = 254) from different age (6- to 13-yearolds) and ethnic groups (African American, Hispanic, and White). Reliability and validity analyses indicated the scale was a psychometrically sound method for accurately and efficiently measuring children’s perceptions of nature across a demographic range. Eco-affinity and eco-awareness emerged as two distinct components of environmental orientations. This new evaluation tool may help educators and researchers examine the ways children perceive the natural world. It may also help to identify cognitive and affective aspects of existing environmental education programs that need improvement.

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Control of mid‐sized mammalian predators (hereafter, mesopredators) is sometimes advocated in an attempt to reduce their impact on wildlife populations, particularly economically important (i.e., game) or endangered species. However, mesopredators may play a role in regulating small mammal populations; thus, lethal control of mesopredators may have unintended consequences. The hispid cotton rat (Sigmodon hispidus; hereafter, cotton rat) is one of the most common small mammals in the southeastern United States and is an important prey species for several of the region's predators. Within fire‐maintained communities, such as the longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) forests of the Coastal Plain, cotton rat populations dramatically, yet temporarily, decline following prescribed fire. To evaluate the effects of mesopredator removal on cotton rat survival and cause‐specific mortality, we conducted a large‐scale mesopredator exclusion experiment that incorporated a prescribed fire during the winter of study. Between 18 May 2006 and 20 June 2007, we used radio‐telemetry to monitor 252 cotton rats (131 in exclosures and 121 in controls) and documented 184 mortalities. During the 37‐week period of monitoring prior to the prescribed fire event, weekly survival of cotton rats was greater in mesopredator exclusion plots. During the 19 weeks following the prescribed fire, there were no differences in weekly survival relative to mesopredator treatment, but fire caused a short‐term reduction in weekly survival within both exclosures and controls. Of 36 cotton rats monitored on the date of prescribed fire, 18 were depredated within 1 month, 4 emigrated, and 5 were killed by the fire event. Overall, raptors preyed on cotton rats more in exclosures than in controls, but evidence for compensatory predation (raptor‐caused morality greater in exclosures than in controls although survival rates were similar between treatments) only occurred following the prescribed fire event. Our results suggest that managing mesopredators may result in a temporary increase in cotton rat survival, but dormant season prescribed fire removes this effect until well into the following growing season. © 2011 The Wildlife Society.