Human-wildlife conflict is a coupled dynamic that simultaneously threatens both ecological and human health. Urban development and agricultural expansion have resulted in the depletion of resources for many species, thus intensifying human-wildlife conflicts and increasing concerns of higher risks of disease infecting humans in proximity to wildlife. When a crisis emerges in an acute fashion (e.g., focusing event), there is an intensification of risk communicated in narrative form. This research measures changes in stakeholders risk narratives, information use, and policy preferences over space and time. To study the dynamic nature of risk narratives over space and time, this project examines a sudden human-wildlife conflict in northern Queensland, Australia, where unprecedented heat events have resulted in mass mortality of spectacled flying foxes (Pteropus conspicillatus). Inadequate state and local resources to deal with this record event have led to a crisis, whereby state and local concerns have flared over bat welfare, potential risks of disease being passed to humans (e.g., Lyssavirus), and illness from rotting bat corpses and maggot infestation. This crisis is a focusing event for flying fox management, whereby groups are mobilizing countervailing efforts: to list the spectacled flying fox as endangered and to remove flying fox habitat (e.g., large old fig trees) from urban areas. There is a coupled feature in this bat-human system that has created a new dynamic: the scale of the bat deaths coupled with a paralysis of governmental action leaving residents to take immediate action (i.e., round up and bag carcasses). The result of this new dynamic is an intensification of risk narratives as stakeholders make meaning of these events for flying foxes in high density urban communities. Given the immediate emergence of this crisis, this project seeks to understand urban-wildlife conflict through a temporal and spatial relationship between risk narratives and focusing events.
To understand temporal and spatial effects on risk narratives, the research team conducts panel interviews and a panel survey. The present crisis event serves as T1 for baseline risk narrative data (i) to understand how stakeholders' risk narratives change (or remain stable) over time (T2 = 6 months and T3 = 12 months) as new information, policy decisions, and events emerge, and (ii) to capture the spatial variation of risk narratives as a function of distance from mass mortality roost sites. A longitudinal study of panel interviews of residents, wildlife carers, health care workers, and local council members in Cairns is conducted to analyze changes in narrative construct and sentiment. Panel interviews provide critical data to enable the researchers to probe for causal indicators of change in narrative construct and sentiment (e.g., new information, new exogenous shocks to the system). A longitudinal study using a panel survey of residents is conducted to analyze changes in narrative construct, risk perception, preferred solutions for flying fox management, and affect. These panel survey data measure changes in the response variables over time as well distance from the mortality event.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
