Social Repercussion of Translocating a Jaguar in Brazil

Abstract

The translocation of “problem-animals” is a common non-lethal strategy to deal with human-wildlife conflict. While processes of wildlife translocation have been widely documented, little is known about the social repercussions that take place once the capture and the return of a problem-animal to its natural habitat fail and it has to be permanently placed in captivity. We investigated how the public, an important stakeholder in wildlife conservation, perceived the translocation of a female jaguar to a wildlife captivity center. The objectives were to (1) assess the public's perceptions (e.g., attitudes, emotions, awareness) toward the jaguar and its translocation process, and (2) how these psychological constructs are related. We used the social media profiles of the three institutions involved in the process (one responsible for the jaguar rescues, one that supported its recovery, and the one responsible for the jaguar's final destination) and analyzed the comments left by their followers on posts related to the jaguar and the translocation itself during 25 days. A total of 287 comments were analyzed through coding, a categorizing strategy of qualitative analysis; 33 codes were identified. Results showed high admiration for the work done, positive attitudes and emotions, and concern toward the animal. Lack of awareness about the translocation process was high, with comments of curiosity toward the situation being one of the most commonly found. To a lesser extent, people felt sad for the jaguar not being able to return to the wild and criticized the need for translocation. Admiration for the work had a strong relation with gratitude and broader positive perceptions toward the jaguar's story. Criticism related to concern, which was also related to a need for more information and curiosity. Our findings suggest that the public who engaged with those institutions through their Instagram accounts were grateful for seeing the jaguar safe, but were not aware of the complexity of the operation nor about the nature of the conflict with farmers. The public can either reinforce a particular action or jeopardize an entire operation, depending on their perceptions of the matter. In the case of this jaguar, the public held a positive view; however, we acknowledge the limitations of our sample and recommend further analyses of social repercussions among people who are not followers of these organizations. Furthermore, we recommend engaging other stakeholders to fully understand the human dimensions of translocating this jaguar. Finally, for social acceptance, we highlight the importance of transparency and reliability of the organizations operating the translocation.

Poaching and hunting, conflicts and health: human dimensions of wildlife conservation in the Brazilian Cerrado

“…The type of data analyzed was the interviewees speech, their answers and reports. Coding is a method that organizes data into subjects of interest and is useful in sorting and describing data, identifying which themes appear in a speech act (Maxwell, 2013;Martins et al, 2022). Complementary to this method, we performed a connecting strategy, narrative analysis, which attempts to understand the data, identifying relationships among the elements of the speech act to understand the context in which the statements are placed.…”

“…They represent topics that appear in the interviewees' speech, including topics important for this research, and aid in the interpretation of the interviewees' opinions and thoughts. Some codes were grouped into organizational categories that represent broader themes of research interest and describe all the codes included in them (Maxwell, 2013;Martins et al, 2022). For instance, "poached animals" and "wildlife meat consumption" were codes of the "wildlife poaching" code group.…”