Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2017
College/Unit
Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design
Department/Program/Center
Agricultural and Resource Economics
Abstract
Public acceptance of hunting and hunting practices is an important human dimension of wildlife management in the United States. Researchers surveyed 825 U.S. residents in an online questionnaire about their views of hunting, hunters, and hunting practices. Eighty-seven percent of respondents from the national survey agreed that it was acceptable to hunt for food whereas 37% agreed that it was acceptable to hunt for a trophy. Over one-quarter of respondents did not know enough about hunting over bait, trapping, and captive hunts to form an opinion about whether the practice reduced animal welfare. Chi-square tests were used to explore relationships between perceptions of hunters and hunting practices and demographics. Those who knew hunters, participated in hunting-related activities, visited fairs or livestock operations, or were males who had more favorable opinions on hunting. A logistic regression model showed that not knowing a hunter was a statistically significant negative predictor of finding it acceptable to hunt; owning a pet was statistically significant and negative for approving of hunting for a trophy.
Digital Commons Citation
Byrd, Elizabeth; Lee, John G.; and Olynk Widmar, Nicole J., "Perceptions of Hunting and Hunters by U.S. Respondents" (2017). Faculty & Staff Scholarship. 1345.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/faculty_publications/1345
Source Citation
Byrd, E., Lee, J., & Widmar, N. (2017). Perceptions of Hunting and Hunters by U.S. Respondents. Animals, 7(12), 83. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani7110083
Comments
© 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).