Attitudes and Knowledge of Natural Resources Agency Personnel towards Black-Tailed Prairie Dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus)
Richard P. Reading, David Stern and Lauren McCain
Abstract: Black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus) and their management represent a conflictladen, polarised issue. Until this study, we knew little about the attitudes and knowledge of agency personnel who work with this species. We used semi-structured interviews to develop a mail survey to sample 500 natural resources agency personnel who study, manage or otherwise work with prairie dogs. Within professional fields, land managers generally displayed the most positive attitudes towards prairie dogs, followed by wildlife biologists/managers, and then personnel from agricultural fields. With respect to the geographic scope of their work, respondents working regionally or nationally displayed the most positive attitudes towards prairie dogs, followed by people working within states, and then people working locally. Our results provide possible reasons for these differences, which can serve as a basis for reducing and better managing conflict. In addition, differences between sample groups for many questions were small and not significant, suggesting room exists for finding common ground.
|
