GRIZZLY BEAR CONSERVATION IS AS MUCH ABOUT HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS AS IT IS THE ANIMALS
Grizzly Bear Conservation Is as Much About Human Relationships as It Is the Animals
April 16th, 16PM April 16th, 16PM(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)
Alexander L. Metcalf,
University of Montana
(THE CONVERSATION) Montanans know spring has officially arrived when grizzly bears
emerge from their dens. But unlike the bears, the
contentious debateover their future never hibernates.
New researchfrom
my labreveals how people's social identities and the dynamics between social groups may play a larger role in these debates than even the animals themselves.
Social scientists like mework to understand the
human dimensionsbehind wildlife conservation and management. There's a cliché among wildlife biologists that wildlife management is really people management, and they're right.
My researchseeks to understand the psychological and social factors that underlie pressing environmental challenges. It is from this perspective that my team sought to understand how Montanans think about grizzly bears.
To list or delist, that is the question
In 1975, the grizzly bear was listed as
threatened under the Endangered Species Actfollowing decades of extermination efforts and habitat loss that
severely constrained their range. At that time, there were
700-800 grizzly bears in the lower 48 states, down from a historic 50,000. Today, there are
about 2,000 grizzly bearsin this area, and sometime in 2024 the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decidewhether to maintain their protected status or begin the delisting process.
Listed species are managed by the federal government until they have recovered and management responsibility can return to the states. While listed, federal law prevents hunting of the animal and destruction of grizzly bear habitat. If the animal is delisted, some states intend to implement a
grizzly bear hunting season.
People on both sides of the delisting debate often use logic to try to convince others that their position is right. Proponents of delisting say that hunting grizzly bears can help
reduce conflict between grizzly bears and humans. Opponents of delisting counter that state agencies
cannot be trustedto responsibly manage grizzly bears.
But debates over wildlife might be more complex than these arguments imply.
Identity over facts
Humans have
survived because of our evolved ability to cooperate. As a result, human brains are
hardwired to favor people who are part of their social groups, even when those groups are
randomly assigned and the group members are anonymous.
Humans
perceive realitythrough the lens of their social identities. People are more likely to see a foul
committed by a rivalsports team than one committed by the team they're rooting for. When randomly assigned to be part of a group, people will even overlook
subconscious racial biasesto favor their fellow group members.
Leaders can leverage social identities to inspire
cooperation and collective action. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, people with strong
national identitieswere more likely to physically distance and support public health policies.
But the forces of social identity have a dark side, too. For example, when people think that another "out-group" is threatening their group, they tend to assume members of the other group
hold more extreme positions than they really do. Polarization between groups can worsen when people convince themselves that
their group's positions are inherently rightand the other group's are wrong. In extreme instances, group members can use these beliefs to
justify immoral treatment of out-group members.
Empathy reserved for in-group members
These group dynamics help explain
people's attitudes toward grizzly bears in Montana. Although property damage from grizzly bears is extremely rare, affecting
far less than 1% of Montanans each year, grizzly bears have been known to
break into garages to access food,
prey on free-range livestockand sometimes even
maul or kill people.
People who hunt tend to have
more negative experienceswith grizzly bears than nonhunters – usually because hunters are more often living near and moving through grizzly bear habitat.
In a
large surveyof Montana residents,
my team foundthat one of the most important factors associated with negative attitudes toward grizzly bears was whether someone had heard stories of grizzly bears causing other people property damage. We called this "vicarious property damage." These negative feelings toward grizzly bears are highly correlated with the belief that there are
too many grizzly bears in Montanaalready.
But we also found an interesting wrinkle
in the data. Although hunters extended empathy to other hunters whose properties had been damaged by grizzly bears, nonhunters didn't show the same courtesy. Because property damage from grizzly bears was far more likely to affect hunters, only other hunters were able to put themselves in their shoes. They felt as though other hunters' experiences may as well have happened to them, and their attitudes toward grizzly bears were more negative as a result.
For nonhunters, hearing stories about grizzly bears causing damage to hunters' property did not affect their attitudes toward the animals.
Identity-informed conservation
Recognizing that social identities can play a major role in wildlife conservation debates helps untangle and perhaps prevent some of the conflict. For those wishing to build consensus, there are many psychology-informed strategies for
improving relationships between groups.
For example, conversations between members of different groups can help people
realize they have shared values. Hearing about a member of your group
helping a member of another groupcan inspire people to extend empathy to out-group members.
Conservation groups and wildlife managers should take care when developing interventions based on social identity to prevent them from backfiring when applied to wildlife conservation issues. Bringing up social identities can sometimes cause unintended division. For example, partisan politics can unnecessarily
divide people on environmental issues.
Wildlife professionals can reach their audience more effectively by matching their message and messengers
to the social identities of their audience. Some conservation groups have seen success uniting community members who might otherwise be divided around a shared identity associated with their love of a particular place. The conservation group
Swan Valley Connectionshas used this strategy in Montana's Swan Valley to reduce conflict between grizzly bears and local residents.
Group dynamics can foster cooperation or create division, and the debate over grizzly bear management in Montana is no exception. Who people are and who they care about drives their reactions to this large carnivore. Grizzly bear conservation efforts that unite people around shared identities are far more likely to succeed than those that remind them of their divisions.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here:
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