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Wildlife–Vehicle Collisions in Tasmania: Tourists' Attitudes and Behaviour.

Wildlife–Vehicle Collisions in Tasmania: Tourists' Attitudes and Behaviour.

Authors :
Leurs, Elleke
Kirkpatrick, James B.
Source :
Animals (2076-2615). Aug2024, Vol. 14 Issue 16, p2413. 15p.
Publication Year :
2024

Abstract

Simple Summary: Wildlife–vehicle collisions continue to threaten Tasmanian wildlife and cause animal welfare issues. As Tasmanian residents often consider roadkill as part of the landscape, tourists' attitudes and behaviour could provide new insights when seeking solutions. Using a self-reporting questionnaire, we found that most tourists view wildlife–vehicle collisions as a serious issue, and humans must take responsibility for minimising the problem. Even though residents seem hardened to roadkill, they appear to play an important role in communicating the issue to tourists. Tourists express a willingness to adopt mitigation strategies, such as altering travelling speed or travelling times. However, this research reveals that the importance of safely removing carcasses and checking on the victims and their surviving young is not fully understood. Tourists indicated that they do not know what to do or whom to contact when confronted with injured, surviving, or deceased wildlife. We suggest that the tourism industry, alongside other stakeholders, can play a significant role in raising awareness and education, as well as inform campaigns tailored to Tasmanian residents. The surge in wildlife–vehicle collision research has not yet translated into a substantial decrease in animal fatalities. In line with the prevailing view, we suspect that drivers' behaviour may be the most crucial element. We address a research gap in drivers' attitudes towards and behaviour in response to wildlife–vehicle collisions from a tourist perspective. We designed a questionnaire to examine tourists' attitudes and behaviour in relation to wildlife–vehicle collisions while driving in Tasmania. We found that the respondents' sociodemographic attributes had minimal effect on their practical responses to roadkill. Tourists consider wildlife–vehicle collisions a serious problem for both biodiversity loss and animal welfare reasons, and their willingness to change their behaviour was high. However, many respondents did not stop to check for surviving pouch young. This inaction resulted either from overlooking the importance of pouch checking or a lack of knowledge on what action needed to be taken. There may also be a lack of understanding that roadkill left on the road leads to secondary roadkill incidents. Even though tourist behaviour does not automatically represent residents' behaviour, these findings will help to improve and tailor educational approaches to rectify the driver awareness/behaviour gap for both tourists and residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
20762615
Volume :
14
Issue :
16
Database :
Academic Search Index
Journal :
Animals (2076-2615)
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
179353638
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14162413