Shanghai residents attitudes towards raccoon dogs

Human-wildlife interactions become increasingly common in urban areas across all continents and ecosystem types. Depending on the context, human-wildlife interactions can be categorized as harmonious, neutral, or in conflict and raise cultural, economic, and ecological challenges in maintaining urban biodiversity. Understanding the mechanism behind the tolerance of residents to the presence of wildlife is vital to promoting a harmonious coexistence between humans and wildlife in urban environments. To advance our knowledge of this mechanism, we developed a questionnaire to survey residents in Shanghai, China about their knowledge of and attitude towards raccoon dogs (Nyctereutes procyonoides), a species whose population is increasing in urban areas. Using 281 questionnaires, we conducted structural equation modeling to examine how relational values, including familiarity with raccoon dogs, perceived benefits and risks, together with residents’ trust in wildlife management authorities, interactively influence the tolerance for this species. We found that the residents’ familiarity with raccoon dogs positively influenced their tolerance, both directly and indirectly through increased perceived benefits and reduced perceived risks. Furthermore, trust in wildlife management authorities contributed to higher tolerance through perceived benefits. Our results suggested that education about the relational values of raccoon dogs to the public can reduce the traditional negative connotation for this species and promote the coexistence of people and raccoon dogs in the Shanghai urban environment. Based on our understanding of how raccoon dogs were culturally constructed and the willingness of residents to share landscapes with the species, we advocate that relational values play an important role in future urban biodiversity conservation planning. We also advocate for education programs that familiarize the public with raccoon dogs as well as other species, which can turn urban human-wildlife conflicts into harmonious relationships in Shanghai and other urban areas.

Methods
We developed a questionnaire and conducted a survey during April-June 2021 to investigate people’s knowledge, attitude, and tolerance towards raccoon dogs. Because the Wildlife Tolerance Model (WTM) described by Kansky et al. (2016) provided a theoretical framework for identifying the key drivers (e.g. cost, benefits) of people’s tolerance for wildlife, we followed and revised Kansky et al. (2016) to develop our questionnaire. We considered demographic variables including gender, age, and education as external variables because we hypothesized that these factors potentially influence residents' familiarity with raccoon dogs and their trust in the ability of wildlife management authorities (Table 1). We also included four variables of human dimensions, including familiarity with raccoon dogs, trust in the ability of wildlife management authorities, and perceived benefits and risks of raccoon dogs, to explain the tolerance of residents toward raccoon dogs (Table 1). We designed multiple corresponding questions for each dimension to quantitatively score participant responses (Table S1, S2).

During the survey, the questionnaires were collected from a convenience sampling due to respondents’ geographical proximity, availability, and willingness to participate (Farrokhi, F., & Mahmoudi-Hamidabad 2012). All questionnaire surveys were conducted in 10 residential districts that had the most human-raccoon-dog conflict cases according to the Shanghai Forestry Bureau database (Shanghai Forestry Bureau, unpublished data). We started our surveys at the residential district at 6 pm and spent the next 2-3 hours interviewing passers-by at the roadside. We chose to survey people at this time because residents walk after dinner and the nocturnal raccoon dogs start to come out. In each residential district, we randomly stopped passers-by to ask about their willingness to participate in the survey. Each participant was informed that the questionnaire survey was anonymous. We received written informed consent from all participants to participate in this research, and the questionnaire was approved by the Ethics Reviewing Committee of Fudan University (FDU220901a). We generated a QR code so that participants could open the questionnaires on their mobile devices and submit their responses anonymously. When interviewing the residents, we distributed stickers with the QR code of the questionnaire and invited participants to share the QR code with their neighbors on social network platforms.

We also conducted a second survey during October-December 2021, after Shanghai wildlife management authorities and environmental organizations initiated educational activities that aimed to inform the public about urban wildlife in their areas. During these educational activities, staff distributed science brochures (Fig. 1a) and placed urban species bulletins in residential districts that had raccoon dog distribution, with specific guidance on how to keep a safe distance and coexist with raccoon dogs. Four educational talks were organized for the communities (Fig. 1b), and volunteers from these communities were invited to participate in raccoon dog surveys. Because the Chinese pronunciation of raccoon dog “貉” sounds exactly the same as “和”, which means peace and harmony, we utilized the homophonic stem and designed raccoon dog emoji (Fig. 1c), and distributed raccoon dog window decoration paper-cut (Fig. 1d). Because the goal of the second survey was to evaluate the effect of these educational activities on tolerance, we surveyed the same districts as the first survey by the same surveyors to achieve compatibility.