Selected survey data for the outcome assessment of a human–carnivore conflict mitigation project (ELC) in Europe

The data presented here have been collected in the context of the EU LIFE EuroLargeCarnivores Outreach Project (LIFE16 GIE/DE/000661). The data set provided is part of a much larger set of data assembled during two different online stakeholder surveys conducted in late 2018/early 2019 (Baseline) and 2021 (Outcome Survey, last year of the project) in 14 countries participating in the project. The data selected are the basis for the analysis and results presented and discussed in the Research Article “Did we achieve what we aimed for? Assessing the outcomes of a human-carnivore conflict mitigation and coexistence project in Europe” by Carol Grossmann and Laszló Pátkó, published in Wildlife Biology in 2024. The dataset is provided as an excel sheet displaying anonymized numerical respondent IDs (rows), and coded answers to selected questions (columns) of these two surveys. The table includes full explanatory wording for all codes used. The data set provided contains n=1262 individual data-subsets from the Baseline Survey and n=1056 individual data subsets from the Outcome Survey in 2021. Part of the questions are identical in both survey sets for direct comparison. Cross references are provided for questions posed in both surveys for comparison but denominated with different numbers in the respective surveys. Part of the questions were posed only in the 2021 survey. Some questions/answers serve as filters for a differentiated analysis according to stakeholder categories, engagement in networking activities, or stakeholder participation and non-participation in project interventions. For more details about the methods of data collection and analysis see Grossmann et al. 2020 and Grossmann and Patko 2024. The reuse potential of this data set lies in the opportunity to assess project outcomes with further stakeholder categories in correlation with respondents’ (non-)participation in project interventions. No further legal or ethical considerations need to be taken, as all individual respondent sets have been fully anonymized.

Methods
We conducted two online stakeholder surveys in the 14 project partner countries, within the European outreach project "EuroLargeCarnivores". We used google forms for the questionnaires, as mandated from ELC project lead. In late 2018 and early 2019, we conducted a baseline survey (t0) and in 2021 (t0+3), an ‘endline’ survey to assess changes over the project’s lifetime on the stakeholder level. The baseline survey ‘Large Carnivores in Europe 2018’ took place dur­ing the first year of the project in all fourteen countries. In 2021, the second comparative stakeholder perception survey ‘Monitoring the Impact’ was launched during the final year of the outreach project in the same distribu­tion range applying the same distribution method.

The Forest Research Institute of Baden-Württemberg (FVA) designed, provided, and coordinated both survey ques­tionnaires and data collection procedures, while staff of the regional project partners provided additional preparations, such as translation of the English master questionnaires into the twelve regional languages, as well as the actual data col­lection. We used a prearranged multi-channel and pyramid distribution system (Atkinson and Flint 2004, Dillman et al 2014, Grossmann et al. 2020). The links to the surveys were distrib­uted via the partners’ systematically updated distribution lists, individual in-person interviews, websites, and social media propaga­tion, offering survey respondents further distribution of the survey through a snowball system, thereby reaching out to as many stakeholders in the 14 project partner countries as possible (Atkinson and Flint 2004, Dillman et al. 2014, Grossmann et al. 2020). After the closure of the surveys, the country datasets were aggregated, re-translated, cleaned and fully coded for analysis. The 2018 survey received n = 1262 returns, the 2021 survey resulted in n = 1056 data, a delta of 16%. Due to the strict enforcement of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we could not address the respondents of Survey 2018 directly again. Additionally, due to the open accessibility of the survey on social media, no concise distribution list of the recipient population is available. We still assumed a comparability of the two datasets for the research questions at hand (Grossmann et al. 2019, 2020).

The statistical analysis used descriptive statistics and the X² Test, including Cramer V and Post Hoc tests (differences in standardized residuals) (Cohen 1988, Agresti 2007) for comparing the samples from 2018 and 2021, as well as subsamples of the 2021 sample for a more focused analy­sis. The analyses were performed using the statistics pro­grams SPSS and Microsoft Excel.

For more details about the methods of data collection and analysis see Grossmann et al. 2020 and Grossmann and Patko 2024.