Killing sharks: The media’s role in public and political response to fatal human–shark interactions

Mccagh, Christine; Sneddon, Joanne; Blache, Dominique

doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2015.09.016

Cited by 71 publications

(74 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…This includes evaluating the ecological and political conditions in each state. Research has considered the activities of animal welfare groups (Chen 2016), the role of the media (McCagh et al 2015), and the influence of movie narratives (Neff 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shark Bites and Shark Conservation: An Analysis of Human Attitudes Following Shark Bite Incidents in Two Locations in Australia

Pepin‐Neff

Wynter

2017

CONSERVATION LETTERS

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This article reports on the first comparative surveys in two separate locations to measure public attitudes toward sharks following shark bite incidents. This study focuses directly on the communities affected by the shark bites, both in Australia-the town of Ballina in the State of New South Wales (N = 500) and the city of Perth in Western Australia (N = 600)-and reports on their attitudes and policy preferences relating to sharks immediately after serious shark bite incidents in 2015 and 2016. In both communities we find that a large majority of respondents prefer nonlethal policies; most respondents believe shark bite incidents to be accidental rather than intentional; while fear of sharks correlates with support for lethal policies, this association is powerfully mediated by perceptions of intentionality. These findings have implications for international wildlife management, particularly regarding predator species in need of conservation. Conservation is based on the public acceptability of a species and if intentionality can mediate fear effects and promote policies that protect the species this is a step forward for conservation management globally.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shark Bites and Shark Conservation: An Analysis of Human Attitudes Following Shark Bite Incidents in Two Locations in Australia

Pepin‐Neff

Wynter

2017

CONSERVATION LETTERS

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“…Such comments indicate that a large proportion of the public did not accept the government's anthropocentric views. However, McCagh et al () acknowledge that their conclusions are speculative as they did not communicate directly with the public.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An analysis of Australian news and current affair program coverage of sharks on Facebook

Busque

Roetman

Dorrian

et al. 2019

Conservat Sci and Prac

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As most people will never encounter sharks in the wild, the media's portrayal of these animals is a key contributing factor to public perception of these species. Facebook is a common way for people to engage with news in Australia. Therefore, content and thematic analysis was conducted on a novel dataset comprising of 2,643 Facebook posts made by Australian news and current affairs media outlets during 2016. To allow for an understanding of the general public's reaction to the media coverage, 40,373 public Facebook user's comments were also analyzed. Shark‐related posts were common, with 87% of all the news‐related Facebook pages analyzed having published at least one post related to sharks and only 49 days had no published shark‐related posts. Shark and human interactions were overwhelmingly the most common theme in the Facebook posts with 45.6% falling into this category and none of these posts labelled the interactions using the Australian Shark Attack File categorization. A common theme emerging from the user comments was that the ocean is dangerous (n = 2,493), suggesting that people may perceive the risk of shark attacks to be high. Because human behaviors negatively impact shark populations, social science research, including media analyses, is an important tool for understanding perceptions of sharks and may guide strategies that could support conservation efforts, including suggestions for how the media should report shark and human interactions.

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“…One obstacle to effective conservation of predators and scavengers in shared landscapes is bias in media, government, and public perception. Skewed viewpoints can sensationalize the negative effects of predators and scavengers (Bhatia et al 2013;McCagh et al 2015) that can have long-lasting repercussions on human perception, behavior, and policy (Kissui 2008;McCagh et al 2015). For example, much of the media framed leopards as the perpetrators when attacks occurred in the city of Mumbai, India (Bhatia et al 2013), and the main local newspaper in Bangladesh pointed to the tiger (Panthera tigris) as being the cause of conflict with a 2x higher frequency when compared to the international "The Guardian" newspaper (Sadath et al 2013).…”

Section: Predator and Scavenger Conservation In The 21st Centurymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An emphasis on wildlife-related risks from the media can lead to risk-averse policy such as when the Western Australia Government deployed drum lines to catch and kill sharks thought to be a threat to the public (McCagh et al 2015). These "signals" the public receives from governments can influence human behavior directed toward wildlife.…”

Section: Predator and Scavenger Conservation In The 21st Centurymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous research has established that European jackals (Canis aureus moreoticus), a subspecies of the golden jackal (Canis aureus), and spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) reduce organic waste by scavenging in urban areas of Serbia and Ethiopia, respectively (Yirga et al 2015;Ćirović et al 2016). In addition, Gilbert et al (2016) It is critical that such attacks from carnivores, though tragic, do not prompt illconsidered and reactionary management responses, such as local eradication programs, because there is little or no evidence that such programs are effective and in fact they may even be counterproductive (McCagh et al 2015). It is essential that the reduction in attacks on humans achieved through carnivore eradication be weighed against the potentially much greater number of lives saved, among other benefits, by the presence of these carnivores.…”

Section: Global Impacts Of Large Carnivores In Urban Environmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The exposure and contribution of predators and scavengers to humans

O’Bryan¹

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Humans are exerting unparalleled pressures on terrestrial vertebrates through overexploitation and development. The patterns of human destruction on the natural environment are especially prevalent within carnivore distributions because they are subject to not only habitat fragmentation and loss, but they are also perceived as a threat to human societies leading to direct conflict. Although the perceived negative impacts of predators and scavengers dominate policy and individual action towards carnivores, there is a growing body of literature pointing to the potential benefits that predators and scavengers provide within shared landscapes. The overall aim of this thesis is to address key gaps in our knowledge on the exposure and contribution of predators and scavengers to humans and how this information can be used to enhance conservation initiatives.Human pressures cause species extinction. These pressures range from over-hunting and urbanization to other forms of habitat loss such as agricultural development. While human pressures and their threatening processes have been increasingly documented across a range of species and ecosystems, we do not know the extent of intense cumulative human pressures within species' geographic ranges globally. In Chapter 2, I aim to quantify the exposure of terrestrial vertebrates to intense human pressure, including carnivores. I use the most up-to-date spatial dataset on cumulative human pressure, which takes into account eight pressures known to cause species decline. I find that 85% of the terrestrial vertebrates assessed have more than half of their range exposed to these cumulative pressures, with carnivores having similar exposure. Specifically, carnivores have on average 75% of their ranges overlapping with intense human pressures. This work provides a useful starting point for assessing species at risk of decline, especially for species with limited information on threats.Carnivore declines impact ecosystem stability that can result in negative impacts on human well-being. In Chapter 3, I aim to provide the first review of the benefits provided by predators and scavengers in shared landscapes with humans. I find that predators and scavengers have been shown to reduce zoonotic disease risk, increase agricultural output, and limit species known to cause injury and death to humans. Through the review process, I found considerable gaps in knowledge regarding the potential benefits of predators and iii scavengers in shared landscapes, and I discuss future avenues of research, its caveats, and opportunities.An important knowledge gap identified during the review was the ecological and human well-being implications of losing apex scavengers. Although there is a great deal of information about the ecological repercussions of losing apex predators, we know relatively little about the role of apex scavengers at regulating lower trophic levels and how this can impact ecosystem health and human well-being. In Chapter 4, I describe the mesoscavenger release hypothesis, the competiti...

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Killing sharks: The media’s role in public and political response to fatal human–shark interactions

Cited by 71 publications

References 32 publications

Shark Bites and Shark Conservation: An Analysis of Human Attitudes Following Shark Bite Incidents in Two Locations in Australia

Shark Bites and Shark Conservation: An Analysis of Human Attitudes Following Shark Bite Incidents in Two Locations in Australia

An analysis of Australian news and current affair program coverage of sharks on Facebook

The exposure and contribution of predators and scavengers to humans

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