Predictive potential of wildlife value orientations for acceptability of management interventions

Wildlife value orientations are patterns of basic beliefs that give direction and meaning to fundamental values in the context of wildlife. Wildlife value orientations can help managers estimate public evaluations to management interventions. Their usefulness, both practically and scientifically, depends on their predictive potential. This article examined the predictive value of wildlife value orientations on the acceptability of wildlife management interventions in different situations. The situations varied in (a) severity of the human wildlife problem and (b) severity of the interventions for wildlife. Two wildlife value orientations were measured: domination (human needs have priority over wildlife well-being, 10 items) and mutualism (rights are assigned to wildlife, 9 items). Acceptability was measured as a dichotomous variable for management interventions across 5 different situations. The predictive value of wildlife value orientations was largest for acceptability of the most severe interventions (hunting, 35–42% of variance explained), followed by the least severe interventions (doing nothing, 5–17%) and the intermediate interventions (shaking eggs or applying contraceptives, 1–9%) in the scenarios that include a problem for humans. Value priorities appear to be an integral feature of value orientations. Intermediate interventions do not harm wildlife, but might solve the problem caused by wildlife. Such interventions also create minimal small internal value conflicts. Orientations that prioritize values and offer a template for conflict resolution are likely to have less predictive potential for these interventions.