Data for: Conservation scholars’ perspectives on the morality of trophy hunting for the sake of conservation
Data files
Sep 12, 2023 version files 142.39 KB
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Ghasemi_et_al._Trophy_Hunting_Survey.sav
133.80 KB
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README.md
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Abstract
- Trophy hunting is one of the most contentious issues in recent biodiversity conservation discourse, eliciting opposition and support for the practice. Ethical concerns are often at the heart of the debate.
- To investigate moral views about trophy hunting, we conducted an online survey of randomly selected scholars worldwide who had published on biodiversity conservation (n = 2,315).
- Scholars expressed divergent views on the moral acceptability of trophy hunting as a conservation practice. Moral convictions were significantly related to the perspectives
- The most important factor in predicting the moral views of the respondents was the consequences of trophy hunting for local human communities.
- The results also indicated that utilitarian (versus deontological) decision-making in conservation, ecological consequences of trophy hunting, and animal welfare issues contribute to the divergent views.
- The findings emphasize the need for interdisciplinary work on ethical issues concerning animal rights and welfare in conservation, as well as providing robust and comprehensive evidence on the consequences of trophy hunting for local communities.
- We caution that polarization among conservation scholars may negatively affect conservation efforts. Based on the literature and our findings, we provide some recommendations to narrow the gap and consider different management options.
Data for “Conservation scholars perspectives on the morality of trophy hunting for the sake of conservation” published in the journal People and Nature.
2,315 records from a survey of global conservation scholars regarding their perspectives on the morality of trophy hunting as a conservation practice.
Description of the data and file structure
When opened in SPSS, data labels and other fields are self-explanatory. Please refer to the publication for further information.
GENERAL INFORMATION
- Title of Dataset: Conservation scholars’ perspectives on the morality of trophy hunting for the sake of conservation
- Author Information
A. Lead Author Contact Information
Name: Benjamin Ghasemi
Institution: Colorado State University
Address: Fort Collins, CO USA
Email: benjamin.ghasemi@colostate.edu
<br>
B. Co-Author Contact Information
Name: Gerard Kyle
Institution: Texas A&M University
Address: College Station, TX USA
Email: gkyle@tamu.edu
<br>
C. Co-Author Contact Information
Name: Jane Sell
Institution: Texas A&M University
Address: College Station, TX USA
Email: j-sell@tamu.edu
<br>
D. Co-Author Contact Information
Name: Gary Varner
Institution: Texas A&M University
Address: College Station, TX USA
Email: g-varner@tamu.edu3. Date of data collection (single date, range, approximate date): 2016-2018 - Geographic location of data collection: Las Cruces Biological Station, Costa Rica
4This datresearch did not receive any funding. - Links to publications that cite or use the data:
Ghasemi, B., Kyle, G., Sell, J., & Varner, G. (2023). Conservation scholars’ perspectives on the morality of trophy hunting for the sake of conservation. People and Nature. https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/pan3.10539
- Recommended citation for this dataset:
Ghasemi, B., Kyle, G., Sell, J., & Varner, G. (2023). Data for: Conservation scholars’ perspectives on the morality of trophy hunting for the sake of conservation. Dryad Digital Repository. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.sxksn0389
DATA-SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR: Ghasemi et al. Trophy Hunting Survey.sav
- Number of variables: 21
- Number of cases/rows: 2,315
- Variable List: (Variable Name; Description; Type; Measurement; Labeled Values;)
- ResponseId; Respondent’s unique ID; String; Nominal;
- Q1; In your opinion, how acceptable is trophy hunting as a conservation practice?; Numeric; Ordinal; Totally unacceptable (1), Unacceptable (2), Slightly unacceptable (3), Undecided (4), Slightly acceptable (5), Acceptable (6), Perfectly acceptable (7);
- Q2.1; To what extent do you feel your position on trophy hunting is a moral stance?; Numeric; Ordinal; Not at all (1), A little (2), To a moderate extent (3), A lot (4), To a great extent (5);
- Q2.2; To what extent do you feel your position on trophy hunting is based on strong personal principles?; Numeric; Ordinal; Not at all (1), A little (2), To a moderate extent (3), A lot (4), To a great extent (5);
- Q2.2; To what extent do you feel your position on trophy hunting is based on strong personal principles?; Numeric; Ordinal; Not at all (1), A little (2), To a moderate extent (3), A lot (4), To a great extent (5);
- Q2.3; To what extent do you feel your position on trophy hunting is morally correct?; Numeric; Ordinal; Not at all (1), A little (2), To a moderate extent (3), A lot (4), To a great extent (5);
- Q3; In your opinion, how morally acceptable is trophy hunting as a conservation practice?; Numeric; Ordinal; Totally unacceptable (1), Unacceptable (2), Slightly unacceptable (3), Undecided (4), Slightly acceptable (5), Acceptable (6), Perfectly acceptable (7);
- Q4.1; How important was each of the factors below in your position on trophy hunting? - Economic incentives to protect threatened species; Numeric; Ordinal; Not at all important (1), Slightly important (2), Moderately important (3), Very important (4), Extremely important (5);
- Q4.2; How important was each of the factors below in your position on trophy hunting? - Consequences to the number of threatened species; Numeric; Ordinal; Not at all important (1), Slightly important (2), Moderately important (3), Very important (4), Extremely important (5);
- Q4.3; How important was each of the factors below in your position on trophy hunting? - Rights of the individual animals who get killed; Numeric; Ordinal; Not at all important (1), Slightly important (2), Moderately important (3), Very important (4), Extremely important (5);
- Q4.4; How important was each of the factors below in your position on trophy hunting? - Welfare of the individual animals who get killed; Numeric; Ordinal; Not at all important (1), Slightly important (2), Moderately important (3), Very important (4), Extremely important (5);
- Q4.5; How important was each of the factors below in your position on trophy hunting? - Fair distribution of economic benefits generated by trophy hunting; Numeric; Ordinal; Not at all important (1), Slightly important (2), Moderately important (3), Very important (4), Extremely important (5);
- Q4.6; How important was each of the factors below in your position on trophy hunting? - Evolutionary consequences to the threatened species populations; Numeric; Ordinal; Not at all important (1), Slightly important (2), Moderately important (3), Very important (4), Extremely important (5);
- Q4.7; How important was each of the factors below in your position on trophy hunting? - Trophy hunters’ characters; Numeric; Ordinal; Not at all important (1), Slightly important (2), Moderately important (3), Very important (4), Extremely important (5);
- Q4.8; How important was each of the factors below in your position on trophy hunting? - Trophy hunters’ Intentions; Numeric; Ordinal; Not at all important (1), Slightly important (2), Moderately important (3), Very important (4), Extremely important (5);
- Q4.9; How important was each of the factors below in your position on trophy hunting? - Local communities’ opinions and feelings; Numeric; Ordinal; Not at all important (1), Slightly important (2), Moderately important (3), Very important (4), Extremely important (5);
- Q4.10; How important was each of the factors below in your position on trophy hunting? - Social consequences to the local communities; Numeric; Ordinal; Not at all important (1), Slightly important (2), Moderately important (3), Very important (4), Extremely important (5);
- Q4.11; How important was each of the factors below in your position on trophy hunting? - Consequences to biodiversity and ecosystems; Numeric; Ordinal; Not at all important (1), Slightly important (2), Moderately important (3), Very important (4), Extremely important (5);
- Q4.12; How important was each of the factors below in your position on trophy hunting? - Global public opinion and feelings; Numeric; Ordinal; Not at all important (1), Slightly important (2), Moderately important (3), Very important (4), Extremely important (5);
- Q4.13; How important was each of the factors below in your position on trophy hunting? - Global public trust in conservation; Numeric; Ordinal; Not at all important (1), Slightly important (2), Moderately important (3), Very important (4), Extremely important (5);
- Q5.1; To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements regarding decision-making concerning wildlife? - It is morally right to harm a wild animal if harming it is a necessary means to helping several other wild animals.; Numeric; Ordinal; Strongly disagree (1), Disagree (2), Somewhat disagree (3), Neither agree nor disagree (4), Somewhat agree (5), Agree (6), Strongly agree (7);
- Q5.2; To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements regarding decision-making concerning wildlife? - Sometimes it is morally necessary for wild animals to die as collateral damage—if more wild animals are saved overall.; Numeric; Ordinal; Strongly disagree (1), Disagree (2), Somewhat disagree (3), Neither agree nor disagree (4), Somewhat agree (5), Agree (6), Strongly agree (7);
- Missing data codes: ., -99, -999
Sharing/other access
N/A.
Links to other publicly accessible locations of the data:
N/A.
Data was derived from the following sources:
An online survey.
Code/Software
Data is in IBM SPSS file format (.sav).
In November and December 2020, we conducted a web-based survey of biodiversity conservation scholars who had published in the scientific literature since 2010. We used the publications listed in the 'Web of Science – All Databases' as the sampling frame and searched for publications using the search term: 'biodiversity conservation' OR 'wildlife conservation' OR 'conservation biology' OR 'trophy hunting' in the 'topic' field. We obtained the authors' email addresses from the same database and sent individualized email invitations with a link to the Web survey hosted by the Qualtrics survey platform. Qualtrics only accepted one response per link, avoiding the possibility of a respondent sharing their link with unidentified respondents. Two additional follow-up invitations were sent within two weeks of the initial invitation to those who did not respond to the earlier invitation. The instructions in the invitation email and survey noted that it was limited to the authors who had published work in the area of biodiversity conservation.
Additionally, at the beginning of the questionnaire, we asked the respondents if their work, study, or research was related to biodiversity conservation. Those who responded 'no' to this question were automatically excluded from the survey. We also asked the respondents to provide their opinions on trophy hunting in the context of the developing world. For clarity and consistency in the responses, the following definition of trophy hunting was provided to the respondents on multiple pages throughout the survey: “Trophy hunting is a type of selective recreational hunting of animals done to obtain their body parts as a representation of success or memorial,” with an emphasis on 'developing countries' (see Appendix S1). The Institutional Review Board of Texas A&M University approved the data collection protocols and the survey instrument (IRB2020-1228M).
Of the 26,064 scholars who received the invitation, 3,794 responded (response rate: 14.5%), and 2,430 completed the questionnaire (completion rate: 64.0%). We used the authors’ contact information at the time of publication. Many had likely changed their institutional affiliation since publication (beginning in 2010). We cannot discern how many authors had changed their affiliations and, consequently, did not receive the invitation. Furthermore, we only sent invitations to authors whose email addresses were available through the database (all co-authors).
After screening out responses from scholars whose work or research did not involve biodiversity conservation (n = 106) and those who did not answer our outcome variable (n = 9), we included 2,315 cases in the analyses.
The data file can be opened in the IBM SPSS software.