Community examples of predator control preference

Community examples of predator control preference for human interactions with carnivores range from non lethal to lethal methods and preferences vary between urban, suburban, and rural residents

Community examples of predator control preference for human interactions with carnivores range from non lethal to lethal methods and preferences vary between urban, suburban, and rural residents.

Due to the continuous increase in human population and settlements, interactions with carnivores have increased in suburban and urban areas and have become quite common.

Highly adaptable species such as coyotes are getting used to live in urban areas. People often will tolerate interactions with wildlife up to a point where the personal tolerance limit is exceeded.

In this work, the authors compared the predator control preferences among people living in urban, suburban, and rural areas.

The authors conducted cross-sectional surveys of adult residents of the United States and the state of Ohio and embedded randomly assigned carnivore interaction scenarios in which respondents were asked to choose their preferred predator control in response to each scenario.

Subjects overwhelmingly indicated a preference for non-lethal forms of predator control.

The tendency to prefer non-lethal methods decreased along the urban-rural gradient such that 78.5% of urban respondents expressed a consistent preference for non-lethal forms of control, compared with 72.8% of suburban respondents, and 51.3% rural respondents.

That people living in rural areas are more prone to use lethal methods makes sense since rural residents probably suffer more negative consequences when interacting with predators such as coyotes and bobcats, the carnivores used in this study.

The results of the study suggest that most urban and suburban residents do not like lethal predator control. Prior research shows that urban residents often prefer translocation of carnivores rather than use lethal methods.

The problem with translocation is that many times the animal gets killed in the new location or tries to return to the original place that it was found. Moreover, the management of human-carnivore interactions in urban and suburban areas is complicated by the presence and density of humans and their pets.

The authors state the need for active forms of predator control that are specifically designed for the urban setting.

They point to efforts in urban areas that have been made to employ careful urban planning to provide refuges for wildlife and reduce human-wildlife conflict.

To learn more, you can browse for human-carnivore interactions at speciesconnect.com (e.g., with coyotes).

Paper: Impact of Location on Predator Control Preference Patterns