Browsing by Subject "Deer hunting -- Minnesota -- Duluth."

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Assessing Residents' Knowledge, Attitudes, and Values Towards the Duluth Urban Deer Herd
    (2015-05) Timmerman, Ryan
    The purpose of this exploratory quantitative mail survey was to discover Duluth residents’ knowledge, attitudes, and values towards the urban deer herd. An area based purposive sample was drawn and the households selected were mailed a four-part questionnaire. The sample was comprised of households in 5 of Duluth’s 34 Deer Hunt Areas (DHAs) which had been created by the Arrowhead Bowhunters Alliance (ABA). With a 32% return rate (150 surveys returned of 469 viable sent), surveys found: scores of; 64% correct on factual deer knowledge; personal experiences, family, and friends were the most common sources of knowledge; personal perceived knowledge was higher than the perceived knowledge of others; overall attitudes and values were positive towards deer; and communication benefits were the most important attitude and values topic. From these results, it was found that factual knowledge was low, self-initiated sources of knowledge were most common, residents’ perceived knowledge was higher than factual knowledge, and naturalistic attitudes were the highest while deer tolerance and educational values were the lowest. From these results, the following recommendations were made: schools could create more lessons revolving around deer in all subject matters to increase knowledge; nature centers and ELC’s could create more programs concentrating on deer to increase positive attitudes and values towards them; government agencies could use their position for outreach campaigns revolving around deer to reach a large amount of people; and the City of Duluth and the ABA could use the results of this survey to help create a management plan for the urban deer herd.