The Nature of the Nuisance-Damage or Threat-Determines How Perceived Monetary Costs and Cultural Benefits Influence Farmer Tolerance of Wildlife

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The Nature of the Nuisance-Damage or Threat-Determines How Perceived Monetary Costs and Cultural Benefits Influence Farmer Tolerance of Wildlife

Abstract: Biodiversity-friendly farming is a growing area of discussion among farmers, as well as in government departments and non-government organizations interested in conservation on private land. Those seeking to encourage biodiversity on farms must understand the production challenges presented by wildlife. Such species destroy agricultural commodities or present threats to family, pets, or infrastructure. A survey of farmers in the Canadian Maritime provinces sought to understand the drivers of tolerance. Our results demonstrated that estimated monetary losses from a species were largely unrelated to the perceived acceptability of those losses. Rather, the type of nuisance-damage to crops/property or threat to the safety of people, pets, or livestock-determined whether a loss would be perceived as acceptable and if that acceptability would influence tolerance. For damaging species, the perception of cultural benefits seemed able to convert high estimated economic losses to acceptable ones, for overall tolerance. For threatening species, however, minor perceived financial losses seemed augmented by low perceived benefits and made unacceptable, leading to intolerance. Female, older, and part-time farmers were most likely to identify threatening species as a nuisance. The use of an elicitation-based survey design provided novel insight as a result of the lack of prompts, but also presented analytical challenges that weakened predictive power. Recommendations are given for further research and management.

One. Introduction

Biodiversity-friendly farming is a growing area of discussion among farmers, as well as in government departments and non-government organizations interested in habitat conservation on private land. Critically, however, the adoption of biodiversity-friendly farming hangs upon the willingness of farmers to encourage wildlife on their farm. The negative impacts of nuisance wildlife can be a significant barrier to the encouragement of biodiversity in agriculturally productive areas.

Scientists and farmers generally agree that ecological function provides essential ecosystem services for farming, such as nutrient cycling, water regulation, and pollination, the replacement of which would involve many expensive inputs. It is also evident, however, that biodiversity presents some disservices, such as potential competition, browse and grazing pressure, predation, and toxicity. The impact of nuisance species varies geographically and over time, often depending on the amount of intact habitat or other feed sources that exist. As such, the tendency for the human footprint to expand into such habitat is, in many cases, at the root of the problem. Nonetheless, to improve the relationship between humans and wildlife, it is critical to understand stakeholder perception of nuisance wildlife.

Social scientists have typically used the concept of wildlife acceptance capacity to understand perceptions of nuisance wildlife. This builds on the concept of cultural carrying capacity, or sociological carrying capacity, which is more consistent with commensurate language from biology but is likely to be very different in outcome. Wildlife acceptance capacity is complex, based on an individual's values, role, and experience within the external context such as species abundance. Species abundance, however, may not be the same as perceived abundance, as first-hand interaction between humans and wildlife will likely influence this perception. Proximity to species has also been demonstrated to be related to wildlife acceptance capacity, although this relationship is species-dependent and inconsistent in the literature. It was found, for example, in Scandinavia, that people were more accepting of carnivores the less direct experience they had with those species. The inverse, however, was found in Alberta, Canada, where those with the least amount of experience with cougars were also the most fearful and least accepting of them.

Wildlife acceptance capacity is highly sensitive to the perception of risk and benefit. For instance, it was found that risk and benefit perceptions explained nearly seventy percent of the variability in the preferred population size of black bears in Ohio. Perceived benefits can be deep-seated or superficial, depending on the values and attitudes from which those opinions are formed. Affect for species can be linked to superficial and changeable attitudes (for example, enjoying the aesthetic look of a particular animal) or more persistent core beliefs or values (for example, a particular species that is linked to cultural identity). Perceived risk may or may not be based on experience. The degree to which an individual feels they have control over a risk will impact their tolerance or acceptance of that risk. If the individual has methods to cope, then there is a tendency toward greater acceptance of that species. The assessment of risk is also often measured as "perceived risk" rather than the actual risk. For example, an attack by a large carnivore may be very unlikely, but the severity and uncontrollable nature of a hypothetical attack will increase the perceived risk of that species. For example, some individuals may consider hiking in the woods more risky than driving a car, while the risk of hitting a deer with a car may be more significant than being attacked by a bear while hiking. High perceptions of risk and benefit are rarely held about the same species. The factors impacting wildlife acceptance capacity will dictate what management methods are considered acceptable. Much of the literature on the human dimensions of wildlife management is focused on one species, and often even one "treatment" approach (e.g., lethal control).

Farmers' tolerance toward wildlife is complex. The tipping point between acceptable and unacceptable wildlife risks and damages and the selection of appropriate methods to deal with those risks/damages are driven by factors affecting wildlife acceptance capacity. There are few, if any, universal variables that predict conservation behaviour by farmers, including coping mechanisms for nuisance wildlife. Despite the financial costs that wildlife may represent to this economically pinched sector, many farmers accept some losses as the "cost of doing business" in balance with nature. The close tie between farmers and the land has been well-documented, historically described by conservationists such as Leopold as a "land-ethic". Many family farmers in particular have long-range stewardship goals and management styles, although these can be purely symbolic. Farmers' aesthetic judgments about production land are different to non-farmers' and may involve using the presence of wildlife as indicators of land health. Other benefits of wildlife for farmers may include the simple enjoyment of seeing wildlife, knowing that they created the conditions for wildlife to be there, and showing wildlife to friends and family, but how commonly farmers perceive these benefits is poorly understood. It is critical to understand better what distinguishes amenity, balance, and nuisance for individual species and, thus, habitat types if agriculture is to co-exist with nature and, thus, the ecosystem services of which nature is the engine.

We surveyed farmers in two of the Canadian Maritime provinces to understand the drivers of their tolerance for wildlife (i.e., their stated acceptability of the presence of a species after weighing the pros and cons). Often, measuring the WAC of species involves measuring all the factors influencing that capacity. Our survey was too short to accomplish this. Instead, we measured farmer tolerance of species-the acceptance of the impacts from a species rather than acceptance of the species itself-and factors that were expected to significantly affect that tolerance among farmers. This focus emerged from our efforts to understand some of the contextualizing factors within a larger investigation of farmer conservation behaviour (in this case, their perception of and response to nuisance wildlife as a barrier to adopting biodiversity conservation practices). We did not provide farmers with a list of species but instead asked farmers to nominate those species they perceived as a nuisance. In this paper, we identify the species nominated most often, and explore how the nature and magnitude of their nuisance and the cultural benefits those same species may also represent for farmers affect overall tolerance of these species. We discuss how the perception of benefits moderated tolerance regardless of the type of nuisance involved, and the implications of this for the encouragement of biodiversity-friendly farming. We also discuss the benefits and challenges of designing a quantitative survey as an elicitation tool.