DOI: 10.5061/dryad.bvq83bkfr
title: Public perceptions of trophy hunting are pragmatic, not dogmatic

description: Fierce international debates rage over whether trophy hunting is socially
 acceptable, especially when people from the Global North hunt well-known
 animals in sub-Saharan Africa. We used an online vignette experiment to
 investigate public perceptions of the acceptability of trophy hunting in
 sub-Saharan Africa among people who live in urban areas of the USA, UK and
 South Africa. Acceptability depended on specific attributes of different
 hunts as well as participants’ characteristics. Zebra hunts were more
 acceptable than elephant hunts, hunts that would provide meat to local
 people were more acceptable than hunts in which meat would be left for
 wildlife, and hunts in which revenues would support wildlife conservation
 were more acceptable than hunts in which revenues would support either
 economic development or hunting enterprises. Acceptability was generally
 lower among participants from the UK and those who more strongly
 identified as an animal protectionist, but higher among participants with
 more formal education, who more strongly identified as a hunter, or who
 would more strongly prioritize people over wild animals. Overall,
 acceptability was higher when hunts would produce tangible benefits for
 local people, suggesting that members of three urban publics adopt more
 pragmatic positions than are typically evident in polarized international
 debates.
description: Data collected from an online vignette experiment hosted on the
 Qualtrics platform. Data analysed in R statistical software.
description: R statistical software. Required packages called at the top of
 the accompanying R script.
description: # Public perceptions of trophy hunting are pragmatic, not dogmatic ---
 Data underpinning analyses presented in Hare et al (2024), ‘Public
 perceptions of trophy hunting are pragmatic, not dogmatic’.
 ## Description of the Data
 and file structure This data set includes all columns necessary to
 replicate model fitting, selection, and comparisons outlined in the
 manuscript. Variable names mean: * education = participant’s level of
 formal education * people.animals = whether a participant would prioritise
 people or wild animals if their interests clash * individuals.groups =
 whether a participant would prioritise individual wild animals or groups
 of wild animals if their interests clash * hunter = whether a participant
 identifies as a hunter * conservationist = whether a participant
 identifies as an advocate for environmental conservation *
 animal.protectionist = whether a participant identifies as an advocate for
 animal protection * human.rights = whether a participant identifies as an
 advocate for human rights * country.1 = the participant's country of
 residence * vignette = summary of which vignette the participant randomly
 received (first letters of the level of each expermiental variable
 described in that vignette) * animal = which animal would be hunted, as
 stipulated in vignette * meat = how meat from the hunt would be used, as
 stipulated in vignette * revenue = how revenue from the hunt would be
 used, as stipulated in vignette * response.text = how acceptable or
 unacceptable the participant indicated the hunt described in the vignette
 would be * gender = participant’s gender * age = participant’s age *
 rural.past.combined = whether the participant grew up in a rural or urban
 location ## Sharing/access Information There are no other publicly
 accessible versions of the data. Data was derived from the following
 sources: An online experiment hosted on the Qualtrics platform. ##
 Code/Software The accompanying annotated script, ‘Perceptions of hunting
 script_Dryad’ replicates the model fitting, selection, and comparisons
 outlined in the manuscript. The code was originally written in R Version
 4.3.0. Running the code requires the following packages: tidyverse ordinal
 MuMIn