Dominant attitudes and values towards wildlife and the environment in coastal Alabama

Surveys assessing attitudes and values about the environment can help predict human behavior towards wildlife and develop effective conservation goals alongside local communities. Southern Alabama is a hotspot for biodiversity and endemism in the United States and is in need of studies to protect its wildlife. Land and wildlife management practices in Alabama have moved from indigenous-led management, which is more in harmony with the environment, to larger-scale exploitative uses of the environment for agriculture and plantations. We therefore predicted that a large proportion of the population has a dominant view of the environment in which land and wildlife should be used primarily for human benefit. To test this hypothesis, we surveyed over 1,300 residents in Mobile and Baldwin counties – the two southernmost counties in Alabama – to assess attitudes towards local vertebrate wildlife, knowledge of the region’s biodiversity, and whether individuals value protected areas where they live and/or work. As hunting is considered a dominant behavior, we used self-identified hunters versus non-hunters to examine the relationship between humans and the environment. Overall, hunters would kill or kill to eat more often than non-hunters, and they would kill even when not for lethal removal or for meat. Furthermore, regardless of hunting status, most participants in our survey would kill a snake, indicating that targeted environmental education is needed for this vertebrate group. Both hunters and non-hunters, independently of demographic differences including education and income levels, were not familiar with the especially rich biodiversity of the area and would not be willing to invest money to protect it. Our results indicate that increasing targeted education about the unique and rich biodiversity of southern Alabama compared to the rest of the US is needed to support successful environmental management, conservation actions, and local participation.