Attitude and action syndromes of exurban landowners have little effect on native mammals in exurbia

Abstract

Private property is increasingly important for nature conservation, and exurbia an increasingly prominent form of private land use. There have been very few studies of the attitudes of exurban landowners to nature, all of which indicate a high degree of biophilia, and no studies of the effect of variation in the attitudes and actions of these landowners on wild mammal assemblages on their properties. A questionnaire survey of landowners was combined with spotlight observations of fauna on their properties to test the attitudes of the landowners to nature and the null hypothesis that syndromes of landowner attitudes to nature, and actions in relation to nature, have no effect on wild mammals at the property scale. All respondents were positive about native wild animals and trees. Four groups of landowners (biophiles, autocrats, idealists and utilitarians) derived by a classification of ordination scores based on attitude and action question responses, were different in their attitudes towards native wild mammals, exotic wild mammals and trees. However, their properties did not differ in the presence or frequency of any native wild mammal species. There were statistical relationships between the presence/absence of native wild animal species and indices related to intervention, fondness of trees, aversion to trees, fondness of native animals, and fondness of exotic animals. However, with the possible exception of the tendency of the common brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) to be absent from properties owned by the people who least liked wild animals, the association of native animals with attitude or action indices appeared to be coincidental. It therefore seems that programs directed towards influencing the attitudes of landowners to wildlife may be ineffective in conserving wildlife in exurbia.

Does Historical Coexistence with Dingoes Explain Current Avoidance of Domestic Dogs? Island Bandicoots Are Naïve to Dogs, unlike Their Mainland Counterparts

“…As in Carthey and Banks [ 19 ], we asked residents to consider their backyards only, as pets are rarely kept in front yards. We asked about the number of dogs and cats people owned and how frequently their pets were kept inside during the day and night, because bandicoots in Tasmania can also be active during the day [ 35 ]. We also added a new category for reports of roaming cats and dogs (as recommended by Michael Driessen, DPIPWE, pers.…”

Greening Sydney: attitudes, barriers and opportunities for tree planting

“…Other Australia-focused research is by Shaw (2014) who studied attitudes towards urban wildlife gardening in Melbourne residential backyards. In Tasmania studies have been done by Zagorski, Kirkpatrick and Stratford (2004) and Kirkpatrick, Daniels and Zagorski (2007) relating garden types to attitudes, and the work of Daniels and Kirkpatrick (2011) in relationship to fauna variation on exurbanite households. Studies exploring attitudes toward street trees as well as household trees have been done by Williams (2002) in Melbourne.…”

“…In fact, the analysis and identification of attitudes, barriers and opportunities in this study aimed to explore the social sphere of the urban forest and its sustainable contributions. As Daniels and Kirkpatrick (2011) commented, hopefully an attitudes change will bring change in actions that will benefit urban forest preservation.…”

Why people may like invasive species: investigating biophilia in botanical gardens adjacent to natural forest ecosystems

“…Social perceptions of the elements of biological systems have been shown to be important when developing natural resources related management policies in other contexts. For instance, consideration of residents' perceptions is particularly important for wildlife conservation management in urban contexts in Australia (Daniels & Kirkpatrick 2011, Fitzgibbon & Jones 2006. Likewise, visitors' perceptions of biodiversity explain visitors' attraction towards national parks (Siikamäki et al 2015).…”