Data for: Conservation professionals agree on challenges to coexisting with large carnivores but not on solutions

Although many studies explore characteristics of stakeholders or publics “for” or “against” carnivores, disagreements among conservation professionals advocating different conservation strategies also occur and are not well recognized. Differing viewpoints on whether and how humans can share landscapes with large carnivores can influence conservation actions. To characterize current viewpoints about terrestrial carnivore conservation, we conducted an online survey assessing a wide range of viewpoints about large carnivore conservation among international professionals (n=505). We explored how variation in viewpoints was related to expertise, background, and broader institutional contexts in which one lives and works. The majority of participants agreed people and large carnivores can share the same landscapes (86%). Human adaptation to carnivores (95% agreement) and acceptance of some conflict (93%) were the highest ranked requirements for human-carnivore coexistence. We found broad consensus regarding intrinsic value of carnivores, reasons carnivores are imperilled, conflict drivers, and importance of proactive solutions, such as adopting preventative livestock husbandry methods or avoiding situations that put people at risk. The greatest polarization was observed in issues related to lethal control, where we only found broad consensus for killing carnivores in situations where humans are in immediate risk. Participants did not support killing large carnivores for purposes of decreasing population sizes or increasing human tolerance, profits, livelihoods, or fear of humans. Results point to considerable diversity, perhaps driven by local context, concerning how to proceed with large carnivore conservation in increasingly human-influenced landscapes of the Anthropocene. The different observed viewpoints represent both different strategies about how to best conserve, but also different moral platforms about what, how, where, and for whom conservation should occur. Our study underlines that challenges to adopting and implementing long-lasting carnivore conservation strategies may well occur as much within the conservation community as outside it.尽管诸多研究已针对支持或反对食肉动物（carnivores）的利益相关者（stakeholders）与公众特征展开探索，但倡导不同保护策略的保护专业人士（conservation professionals）之间的分歧同样存在，且尚未得到充分认知。关于人类能否以及如何与大型食肉动物（large carnivores）共享生存空间的不同观点，会对保护行动产生影响。为刻画当前陆地食肉动物保护（terrestrial carnivore conservation）领域的相关观点，我们针对505名国际专业人士开展了一项在线调查，对其关于大型食肉动物保护的各类观点进行了评估。我们探究了观点差异与专业水平、从业背景，以及个体生活与工作所处的制度环境之间的关联。多数受访者认为人类与大型食肉动物能够共享生存空间，占比达86%。人类适应食肉动物（95%的受访者认同）与接受一定程度的冲突（93%的受访者认同），被列为人与食肉动物共存的最高优先级要求。我们发现，在食肉动物的内在价值、食肉动物濒临灭绝的原因、冲突诱因，以及主动解决方案的重要性（如采用预防性畜牧养殖手段或规避会将人类置于风险中的场景）等方面，存在广泛共识。而与致死管控相关的议题则呈现出最显著的观点极化现象，仅在人类面临即时生命风险的场景下捕杀食肉动物这一主张，获得了广泛共识。受访者不支持出于缩减种群规模、提升人类容忍度、获取经济收益、改善生计，或是缓解人类对食肉动物的恐惧的目的而捕杀大型食肉动物。研究结果显示，在人类世（Anthropocene）背景下，人类活动影响日益加剧的生存空间中，关于如何推进大型食肉动物保护工作的观点存在显著分歧，这种分歧或由当地语境所驱动。观测到的不同观点，既体现了关于最优保护路径的不同策略，也反映了在保护的对象、方式、地域范围以及服务对象等方面存在差异的道德立场。本研究强调，采用并实施长效食肉动物保护策略所面临的挑战，不仅可能来自保护界外部，同样也可能源自保护界内部。