odonnell1987

O'Donnell, Michael A. and Larry W. VanDruff. 1987. Wildlife problems, human attitudes, and response to wildlife in the Syracuse, New York, metropolitan area. In Daniel J. Decker and Gary R. Goff (Eds.), Valuing wildlife: Economic and Social Perspectives (pp. 355- 356). Boulder, CO: Westview.

O'Donnell and VanDruff conducted a telephone survey of Syracuse, NY metropolitan households, finding that 30% of respondents had experienced problems with wildlife in the previous two years. For city residents, the problems were mostly with gray squirrels (23%) and pigeons (20%), and the problem most often reported was “general nuisance” (39%). For suburban residents, the most problems occurred with the gray squirrel ( 23%) and the cottontail rabbit (19%), and the problems mostly involved damage to yard/garden (41%) but also included general nuisance (25%). The distribution of these problems did not vary by socioeconomic status. Half of the respondents tried to solve their problems, and 45% of those who tried succeeded. Respondents' most liked species were common songbirds, squirrels, and rabbits. Attitudes toward a species were “strongly correlated with their preferred management goal for that species, and the experience of a pervious problem made the preference rating an even stronger predictor of the preferred management goal for that species” (355-356). This correlation between species liking and management goal was stronger for respondents with nonrural backgrounds than for those with rural backgrounds. “Urban residents were more emotionally attached to animals and did not respond to wildlife problems and control in the same manner as rural residents did” (356). [this is the second article I've read that mentions this finding that urban people are more attached to animals]

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