Love Off, Fear On? Brown Bear Acceptance by Teenagers in European Countries with Differing Population Statuses

Linas Balčiauskas, Hüseyin Ambarlı, Laima Balčiauskienė, Guna Bagrade, Martynas Kazlauskas, Jānis Ozoliņš, Diana Zlatanova and Agrita Žunna
Additional contact information
Linas Balčiauskas: Nature Research Centre, LT 08412 Vilnius, Lithuania
Hüseyin Ambarlı: Department of Wildlife Ecology and Management Faculty of Forestry, Düzce University, 81620 Düzce, Turkey
Laima Balčiauskienė: Nature Research Centre, LT 08412 Vilnius, Lithuania
Guna Bagrade: Latvian State Forest Research Institute “Silava”, LV-2169 Salaspils, Latvia
Martynas Kazlauskas: Institute of Regional Development, Šiauliai University, LT-76352 Šiauliai, Lithuania
Jānis Ozoliņš: Latvian State Forest Research Institute “Silava”, LV-2169 Salaspils, Latvia
Diana Zlatanova: Department of Zoology and Anthropology, Faculty of Biology, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, 1164 Sofia, Bulgaria
Agrita Žunna: Latvian State Forest Research Institute “Silava”, LV-2169 Salaspils, Latvia

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 6, 1-15

Abstract: The acceptance of large carnivores is one of the key issues for their conservation. We analyzed the level acceptance of brown bears ( Ursus arctos Linnaeus, 1758) amongst 10–18 year old school students in four European countries using anonymous questionnaires. Our aim was to characterize the drivers of species acceptance, described as a rural–urban cline, as well as fear levels and the respondents’ familiarity with bears. We found lower levels of acceptance of bears were related to fear of bears and that bear acceptance was not higher in the bear-inhabited countries, but urban inhabitants tended to better accept the species. Factor analysis revealed the importance of country-related aspects, familiarity with bears, experiences in human-wildlife conflict, gender-age differences, respondent’s relationship to nature and the origin of their knowledge of the species. We consider that bear-related education and mass media in Latvia and Lithuania could reduce fear of these animals and sustain their acceptance, while human–wildlife conflict management measures in Bulgaria and Turkey are recommended to boost the appreciation of the species.

Keywords: Ursus arctos; species acceptance; schoolchildren; human–carnivore conflict; fear (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/6/2397/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/6/2397/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:6:p:2397-:d:334287

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().