Urban canids – furry friends or public menaces?
As Wisconsin’s red fox and coyote populations grow, Madison is seeing an increasing number of these urban canids establishing their homes closer to campus. Anne Nardi, UW Life Sciences Communications alumna (M.S. ’17) and current Marketing and Communications Specialist at the UW Environmental Resources Center, devoted her thesis to studying these creatures and whether the public’s perception of them contributes to a peaceful coexistence.
For her thesis, Nardi teamed up with the UW-Madison Urban Candid Project, which aims to investigate the way canids are living in Madison and how we coexist with them.
“I sought LSC out. I wanted help understanding how to better educate the public about urban canid research and management, and I trusted LSC’s expertise with communicating science,” says David Drake, director of the urban canid project.
The first step of Nardi’s research was getting a better grasp on what the public thinks of canids. To do so, she coordinated a survey at four locations throughout the Madison metropolitan area to understand people’s opinions, attitudes, and beliefs toward urban foxes and coyotes. She also performed a small content analysis of the project’s Facebook page to get a better idea of the type of language the project was currently using to talk about these animals.
As it turns out, when it comes to determining the perception of these canids, risk and benefit are key players. For example, some people like that canids reduce local rodent populations, while others think they can also harm domestic animals.
Nardi found that once people form opinions about the “pros and cons” of canids, they were likely to act a certain way when encountering them in city settings.
Central to Nardi’s research was the concept of hazing. According to the Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management, hazing is the process of disturbing an animal’s sense of security to such an extent that it decides to leave its den and move on. If done right, hazing encourages animals to return to their natural habitats and not become too integrated with the human landscape.
“In short, you must become the animal's worst neighbor. You must convince the animal that you are more bothersome than the possibility of starvation or homelessness,” said Nardi.
Wildlife experts recommend hazing urban foxes and coyotes, but do people actually heed that recommendation? Nardi explored what affected people’s tendency to haze in the Madison area.
“Interestingly, we found that those who have the least favorable attitude toward these animals were the most likely to haze these animals – a key co-existence practice,” said Nardi.
Nardi also found that people who lean left or pay attention to wildlife news tend to have a positive view of canids, whereas right-leaning people who pay little attention to wildlife new felt indifferent.
But the biggest takeaway from Nardi’s research is the judgements formed by people about urban canids are complicated—popular culture, news representations, cultural history, risk/benefit perceptions, and value orientations, all play into their public perceptions.
One way to help shift these perceptions is through social media.
“Given the low cost and accessibility of social media, they often become the main form of communication for small organizations like the urban canid project,” says Nardi. “Thus, it’s imperative we know how to communicate on these platforms.”
Based on her research, Nardi provided the UW Urban Canid Project with recommendations of how they could better tailor their messages to fit their target audience. For instance, she recommended targeted Facebook communications for people of certain political ideologies who tended to have certain risk and benefit perceptions of urban canids.
Nardi hopes her research with LSC will help organizations like the urban canid project improve perceptions of canids in urban spaces.
“I think what made this project unique is that David and his team realized a large part of their work was not only researching these animals but also talking about these animals with the Madison community, which made partnering with LSC a great fit,” said Nardi.
