Conflicts between people and wild animals are increasing globally, often with serious consequences for both. Local ordinances are frequently used to promote human behaviors that minimize these conflicts (risk-reducing behaviors), but compliance with these ordinances can be highly variable and little is known about why people do or do not comply.
A new paper by Stacy Lischka and colleagues explores the factors that motivate people in Colorado to take actions to reduce their risk of human-black bear conflicts. They conducted a longitudinal study pairing direct observations of compliance with a wildlife ordinance requiring residents to secure residential garbage from black bears (i.e., bear-proofing), with data from mail surveys. They assessed the relative influence of beliefs and attitudes toward bears and bear-proofing, perceived risks and benefits assigned to bears, trust in wildlife managers, previous experience with conflicts (from direct observations and survey reports), and demographics on bear-proofing behavior. They found that residents who lived on blocks where conflicts with bears were more common were more likely to keep their garbage secured, while residents were less compliant when they were more trusting of wildlife managers and perceived more benefits from bears. Wildlife managers and municipal governments could use this type of information to empower residents to take more risk-reducing behaviors by linking successful management of conflicts to individual actions and emphasizing how reducing conflicts could maintain benefits provided by bears. This study provides a novel example of how information about people’s behavior can be used to develop and refine efforts to increase the number of people acting to reduce human-wildlife conflicts.
