A large carnivore in a peri-urban habitat: the grey wolf (Canis lupus) around Pistoia. Results from a preliminary survey
Creators: name: Cerri, Jacopo
name: Casini, Luisa
name: Ciuti, Francesca
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2016
Subjects: wolf
canis lupus
human dimensions
surveys
emotions
Potential for Conflict Index

description: The grey wolf (Canis lupus) is a large carnivore, which is becoming relatively common in Central Italy, even in urbanized landscapes. To date, no study explored the attitudes and emotions towards wolves in the peri-urban areas of the Apennines, where the species occurs, nor highlighted differences between hunters and non-hunters. Our work aims to fill this gap by analyzing the results of a preliminary survey (n=406), carried out in Pistoia from May 2015 to April 2016. Questionnaires were semi-quantitative. Illegal killing (43.8%) and hybridization with dogs (38.7%) were deemed the main threats to wolf conservation. Some respondents (24.6%) declared to be afraid of the presence of wolves, but many would also be happy to spot them (66.3%). The Wilcoxon test revealed that those who would be happy to see wolves were younger (W=15331, p &lt; 0.05). A relatively high proportion of respondents reported to have seen or heard wolves (42.5%) and such experience was not independent from emotions like fear (X<sup>2</sup>=4.92, p &lt; 0.05) or happiness (X<sup>2</sup>=4.49, p &lt; 0.05). Median regression revealed that happiness towards wolves had a higher power (R<sup>2</sup>H) than fear (R<sup>2</sup>F) in explaining the variance in attitudes about coexistence with wolves (R<sup>2</sup>H =0.23, R<sup>2</sup>F =0.048), the control of wolves killing livestock (R<sup>2</sup>H =0.11, R<sup>2</sup>F =0.079) and wolf hunting (R<sup>2</sup>H =0.13, R<sup>2</sup>F =0.08). Hunters and non-hunters had significantly different attitudes about coexistence with wolves (W=18732, p &lt; 0.01), control of problematic wolves (W=7575, p &lt; 0.01) and wolf hunting (W=6809, p &lt; 0.01). However, hunters held neutral attitudes about all the wolf management scenarios and the Potential for Conflict Index (PCI) revealed a lack of agreement about the coexistence with wolves (PCI=0.82) and their numerical control (PCI=0.72). We found a complex role of emotions in shaping human-wolf relationships and non-straightforward attitudes of hunters about wolf management.
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