Public perceptions of trophy hunting are pragmatic, not dogmatic

Fierce international debates rage over whether trophy hunting is socially acceptable, especially when people from the Global North hunt well-known animals in sub-Saharan Africa. We used an online vignette experiment to investigate public perceptions of the acceptability of trophy hunting in sub-Saharan Africa among people who live in urban areas of the USA, UK and South Africa. Acceptability depended on specific attributes of different hunts as well as participants’ characteristics. Zebra hunts were more acceptable than elephant hunts, hunts that would provide meat to local people were more acceptable than hunts in which meat would be left for wildlife, and hunts in which revenues would support wildlife conservation were more acceptable than hunts in which revenues would support either economic development or hunting enterprises. Acceptability was generally lower among participants from the UK and those who more strongly identified as an animal protectionist, but higher among partic..., Data collected from an online vignette experiment hosted on the Qualtrics platform. Data analysed in R statistical software., R statistical software. Required packages called at the top of the accompanying R script., # Public perceptions of trophy hunting are pragmatic, not dogmatic

---

Data underpinning analyses presented in Hare et al (2024), ‘Public perceptions of trophy hunting are pragmatic, not dogmatic’.

## Description of the Data and file structure

This data set includes all columns necessary to replicate model fitting, selection, and comparisons outlined in the manuscript.

Variable names mean:

* education = participant’s level of formal education
* people.animals = whether a participant would prioritise people or wild animals if their interests clash
* individuals.groups = whether a participant would prioritise individual wild animals or groups of wild animals if their interests clash
* hunter = whether a participant identifies as a hunter
* conservationist = whether a participant identifies as an advocate for environmental conservation
* animal.protectionist = whether a participant identifies as an advocate for animal protection
* human.rights = whether a participant i...