The video as a tool to change perceptions and knowledge about snakes in adults with a high academic level in Costa Rica

Abstract

Introduction: Snakes suffer persecution by humans for misperception, misinformation, and fear. In addition, snakes are threatened by habitat decline, which leads them to seek new territories, favoring human-snake encounters. In Costa Rica these threats also exist in the inhabitants of the city, even in those with a high academic level. To favor the conservation of snakes, it is necessary to implement environmental education strategies aimed at a specific target audience. One possible tool is the creation and dissemination of educational videos, which increase knowledge and improve decision-making for their conservation. Objective: Evaluate the effectiveness of an educational video as a tool to change the perception and knowledge about snakes in adults of high educational level in Costa Rica. Methods: We worked with 340 officials from the UNED headquarters, to whom we had applied an initial diagnosis in 2019. We separated the same participants into two groups: 240 officials received an educational video on snakes from the Greater Metropolitan Area (GAM) that we generated for them and 100 officials received a journalistic video as a control group. Finally, we evaluate their responses in a comparative way with respect to the previous diagnosis. Results: After observing the respective video, 75% of the officials maintain their perception of snakes and 68% would act in the same way in case of an encounter. However, 51,5% showed improvement in their general knowledge about snakes, showing dependence on the video observed. Conclusions: The educational video improved the general knowledge about snakes, but the environmental education effort has to face a high percentage of disinterest on the part of the population, which is a challenge for the conservation of snakes.

Promoting co-existence between humans and venomous snakes through increasing the herpetological knowledge base

“…A few studies also looked at fear and disgust of snakes as evolutionary or taught responses, hypothesising that those who feared snakes the most also had trouble correctly identifying them ( Henke et al, 2019 ) and were less likely to absorb corrective information ( Castillo-Huitrón et al, 2020 ). One study concluded that using audio-visual aids can be effective in changing the perception of people about snakes ( Quesada-Acuña and Pérez-Gómez, 2020 ), though the sample size was limited. These studies are highly pertinent since snakes occupy a unique position among dangerous wildlife of being present in both urban and rural human-dominated landscapes and have one of the highest mortality rates of humans caused by any dangerous wildlife species ( Tumram et al, 2017 ; Conover, 2019 ).…”