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Ecological Awareness, Connection to Wetlands, and Wildlife Recreation as Drivers of Wetland Conservation Involvement

  • Wetland Conservation
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Abstract

Public involvement in conservation is driven by several factors, including individuals’ ecological awareness, sense of connection to landscapes, and wildlife recreation participation. Efforts to increase conservation involvement would benefit from a deeper understanding of the relative strength of these factors in specific landscapes. This study examined these factors specifically in the context of wetland conservation, based on a 2017 survey of Missouri residents (n = 4076). We used multiple linear regression to analyze how wildlife recreation participation predicted awareness of wetland ecological benefits, as well as connection to wetlands. Then, we used logistic regression to analyze how demographic characteristics, wildlife recreation participation in wetlands, awareness, and connection predicted individual involvement in wetland conservation. 19% of respondents reported engaging in at least one wetland-related conservation behavior in the previous year. Compared to non-participants, we found that both wildlife viewers and waterfowl hunters were significantly more aware of wetland ecological benefits, more connected to wetlands, and more likely to be involved in wetland conservation. Connection to wetlands was a considerably stronger predictor of conservation involvement than was awareness of wetland ecological benefits. Our results suggest that promoting connection to wetlands, particularly through increased participation in wildlife recreation, may contribute to more widespread involvement in wetland conservation.

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Data Availability

The dataset used for this study is available from Andrew Raedeke (andrew.raedeke@mdc.mo.gov) on reasonable request.

Code Availability

The SPSS code used for this analysis is available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) for funding this study. We also acknowledge Doreen Mengel, Frank Nelson, Ron Reitz, Marth Tomlin-McCrary, and Tom Treiman of the MDC, as well as Ashley Gramza, formerly of Virginia Tech and co-chair of the North American Bird Conservation Initiative Human Dimensions Subcommittee, and now of Playa Lakes Joint Venture, for their support in survey development. Finally, we acknowledge the respondents of our survey who took the time to contribute to our research, and the members of the Dayer Lab at Virginia Tech who provided invaluable feedback on our manuscript.

Funding

Funding was provided by the Missouri Department of Conservation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Cheatham Hall, 310 W Campus Dr, Blacksburg, VA, 24061, USA

    Jonathan D. Rutter & Ashley A. Dayer

  2. Missouri Department of Conservation, 3500 E Gans Rd, Columbia, MO, 65201, USA

    Andrew H. Raedeke

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  1. Jonathan D. Rutter
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  2. Ashley A. Dayer
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  3. Andrew H. Raedeke
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Contributions

JR analyzed data, created the tables and figures, and wrote the original draft manuscript for this study. AD supervised the project. AR designed the survey and collected data. Both JR and AR curated data before analysis. Both AR and AD acquired funding. All authors contributed to study conceptualization, methodology, and editing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jonathan D. Rutter.

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The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Ethics Approval

Ethics approval for data analysis of our survey was waived by the Virginia Tech Institutional Review Board (protocol #20-068) because it was deemed not to be human subjects research.

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All respondents to the survey used for this study were adults who gave informed consent to participate in this research.

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Rutter, J.D., Dayer, A.A. & Raedeke, A.H. Ecological Awareness, Connection to Wetlands, and Wildlife Recreation as Drivers of Wetland Conservation Involvement. Wetlands 42, 18 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-021-01522-6

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