What drives cat-owner behaviour? First steps towards limiting domestic-cat impacts on native wildlife

Abstract

Context Cats can have substantial negative impacts on native wildlife. To harness the collective conservation impact of owners keeping cats inside, advocacy campaigns need to be based on empirical evidence regarding potential drivers to change cat-owner behaviour. Aims We assessed the degree to which different socio-psychological factors (attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control), past cat owner behaviour, demographics and group membership explained intentions of zoo visitors to bring cats inside. Methods A self-report questionnaire was distributed to zoo visitors based on the theory of planned behaviour. Visitors rated 24 belief statements and four behavioural-intention questions on a scale of one to seven. We adopted an information-theoretic approach to make inferences about the drivers of intention to bring cats inside. Key results Attitude and normative beliefs were strong predictors of intention. Specifically, attitudinal beliefs focussed on the benefits to the cat of being inside or the positive impact on the owner were correlated with intention. Bringing cats inside for the benefit of native species was weakly correlated with intention. We found an interaction between normative beliefs (injunctive and descriptive) and past behaviour. For respondents who were intermittently bringing their cat inside, veterinarians were a key injunctive normative influence. In contrast, respondents who kept their cat outside exclusively rated descriptive norms as influential on their own behaviour. Conclusions Our results indicated a way forward for future advocacy campaigns. To increase the frequency of visitors bringing cats inside, future research should look at campaigns using veterinarians to advocate messages that emphasise the benefits to the cat of being inside or the positive impact on the owner. To target visitors who keep their cat outside exclusively, a normative campaign highlighting the actions of others bringing their cats inside at night may prove successful. Implications Given the impacts cats have on wildlife, conservation campaigns need to properly design communication campaigns to have the best chance at altering cat-owner behaviour. Our results can help guide this process.

Prioritizing cat‐owner behaviors for a campaign to reduce wildlife depredation

“…Specific to our context and problem, we modified McKenzie‐Mohr's () formula by adding a fourth variable: veterinarians' ranking of the impact of the behavior on cat welfare, because we were interested in delivering our future advocacy campaign from veterinary clinics. Veterinarians have a strong expert and normative influence over cat owners, particularly with respect to animal welfare (Harrod et al, ; MacDonald et al, ). Veterinarians have been successful advocates in previous owner‐behavior change initiatives (e.g., Byers et al, for improving owner and dog health) and could also be an important influence on cat owners.…”

“…Cat inside at night Cat brought inside from dusk until dawn every night Reduce home range; cat home range correlated to predation (Robertson, 1998) (Hall et al, 2016b) influence over cat owners, particularly with respect to animal welfare (Harrod et al, 2016;MacDonald et al, 2015). Veterinarians have been successful advocates in previous ownerbehavior change initiatives (e.g., Byers et al, 2014 for improving owner and dog health) and could also be an important influence on cat owners.…”

“…Research on the challenge cats pose to biodiversity conservation has, until now, largely focused on understanding cat habitat‐use and depredation (e.g., in New Zealand: Aguilar et al 2015; Kikillus et al, ; UK: Hanmer, Thomas, & Fellowes, ; USA: Loyd et al, ; Australia: Lilith, Calver, & Garkaklis, ). Research dedicated to the human dimension of changing cat owner behavior is comparatively uncommon but important (e.g., Gramza, Teel, VandeWoude, & Crooks, ; MacDonald, Milfont, & Gavin, ; McDonald, Farnworth, & Clements, ; McLeod, Hine, & Bengsen, ; McLeod, Hine, Bengsen, & Driver, ; Peterson et al, ; Walker et al, ). Proposed solutions have largely focused on changes to law and governance, gradually imposing greater constraints and obligations on cat ownership (Walker et al, ).…”

Our Wild Companions: Domestic cats in the Anthropocene

“…Given that cat populations and behaviour are influenced, directly and indirectly, by human behaviour, integrating cat owners as research participants will be vital to improving our understanding of human-cat-environment relations, and to the development and application of effective, sustainable solutions to the environmental challenges created by the global abundance of people and their cats. Recent research has provided important insights into drivers of cat owner behaviour [28,[30][31][32] and the effectiveness of different techniques for communication and behaviour change [33][34][35]. However, beyond behaviour change initiatives, good-faith engagement between cat owners and advocates, wildlife conservationists, and scientists will be vital to understanding differing perspectives, concerns, and priorities, and to constructively deliberating on human responsibilities to and for domestic cats.…”

Research challenges and conservation implications for urban cat management in New Zealand

“…Recent research has suggested that advocacy campaigns for cat containment that focus on the benefits to cat welfare, rather than wildlife conservation, may be more successful (MacDonald et al 2015;Hall et al 2016) and that a better understanding by cat owners of the risks encountered by free-ranging cats may result in behaviour change (Gramza et al 2016). Integrating social science with ecological studies is particularly useful, and can be achieved well by using citizen-science methodologies.…”