Importance—Satisfaction Analysis of Deer Management Cooperative Members

Abstract

Our study explored the utility of using Importance‐Satisfaction Analysis (ISA) to identify critical attributes to deer management cooperative (DMC) member satisfaction. With white‐tailed deer (Odocoileus virginanus) management by landowners becoming an increasingly popular conservation tool, DMCs represent an approach by private landowners and hunters to collaboratively improve deer herds and hunting quality. Deer management cooperatives are a group of landowners and hunters voluntarily working together to improve the quality of wildlife, habitat, and hunting experiences on their collective acreage. Deer management cooperatives show promise in providing dual benefits to hunter satisfaction and large‐scale conservation efforts such as increasing habitat connectivity. Heterogeneity of satisfaction for deer hunting is well‐documented and DMC member satisfaction is an important factor in member retention and recruitment. We surveyed 2,817 members of 45 DMCs across five states (Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, New York, and Texas) using ISA methodology to better understand their satisfaction with their experience. Hunters’ responses (n = 459) to the 22 attributes measured were segmented by their divergent motivations for DMC membership, resulting in four unique clusters for comparison (Solitude Members, Social Members, Representative Members, and Quality Harvest Members). Our results indicated that motivations for membership influenced importance and satisfaction ratings, further elucidating that multiple types of hunters and members exist within DMC networks. Areas of agreement among the four DMC clusters were the need for Neighbors to follow Quality Deer Management practices, that DMCs are performing well on members Seeing deer and Co‐op members sharing similar harvest goals, and that Preventing crop damage and the Lease value of the DMC property are low priorities. However, there was little agreement in quadrant placement among the four membership clusters for the remaining 17 attributes indicating the importance of DMCs understanding their individual members’ motivations for joining. By retaining satisfied members, DMCs can continue to provide the hunting quality expected as well as the tangential conservation benefits. © 2021 The Wildlife Society.

Impact of deer management cooperative implementation on white‐tailed deer harvest behaviors

“…Following the methods outlined by Pruitt et al (2021Pruitt et al ( , 2022, the 19 hunter motivations were reduced to 14 using Principal Component Factor Analysis (PCA) with varimax rotation. Four unique hunter motivations for joining DMCs emerged from the factor analysis including: Disconnecting, Locavore, Social Fabric, and Harvest Quality (Table 1).…”

“…Following the previous hunter motivation research of Kramer et al (2016) and Pruitt et al (2021), who described varying member motivations for DMC membership, we assessed hunter motivational‐orientations using 19 motivational questions modified from the existing literature (Jackson et al 1979, Applegate et al 1982, Miller et al 2013). We based multiple questions on hunting attributes that were indicative of varying hunter‐motivational stages (e.g., harvest a mature buck, harvest as many white‐tailed deer as possible, make memories, be close to nature, harvest deer for eating; Jackson et al 1979, Applegate et al 1982).…”

“…In New York, 3 DMCs with strict religious practices prohibiting the use of technology received hard copy paper surveys that were distributed to an estimated 115 members by a single representative. Across all DMCs, questionnaire distribution and administration were incumbent upon DMC leaders so we could not assess the representativeness of the sample since we do not know how exactly how many DMC members were reached by DMC Leaders (Pruitt et al 2021).…”

“…Even though DMCs are comprised of members with various motivations for hunting, we found little influence of motivations for hunting over harvest actions. Within the 4 member types described previously (Solitude, Social, Representative, and Quality Harvest; Pruitt et al 2021), harvest behaviors gap scores indicate that DMCs positively impact hunt behavior for a variety of types of hunters like other actions such as antler point restrictions (APRs; Wallingford et al 2017). Perceived hunt quality increased across all types of DMC membership categories with the greatest gain for Representative (+2.03) and Quality Harvest (+2.29) members, compared to Social (+0.83) members and Solitude members (+1.09).…”

Expanding and Evaluating Public Satisfaction with Wildlife Governance: Insights from Deer Management in Indiana, USA

“…In the North America, wildlife agencies have overwhelmingly focused on whether the traditional beneficiaries with a stake in wildlife management (i.e., hunters, anglers, recreators, or farmers) are satisfied with their wildlife interactions (Hendee 1974 ; Tian-Cole et al 2002 ; Gruntorad et al 2020 ). A few studies examine the satisfaction of these stakeholders with specific wildlife management methods (Schroeder et al 2017 ; Pruitt et al 2021 ), and acknowledge that such satisfaction is multidimensional (Hammitt et al 1990 ; Vaske et al 1986 ; Manfredo et al 2004 ). These foci on consumptive users of wildlife or groups who are directly impacted by wildlife damage stem from a market-based model of public administration which conceptualizes citizens as customers of the wildlife agency.…”