Attitudes towards leopard cats in Taiwan 867
in this region are engaged in small-scale poultry farming for personal use (Mai, 2013). Also, 67% of the land in Miaoli County is secondary forest, artificial forest, bamboo forest or agricultural land (Miaoli County Government, 2018), which can be suitable habitat for leopard cats (Pei et al., 2014; Ross et al., 2015).
Methods
FIG. 1 Locations of the townships Tongxiao, Yuanli and Sanyi in Miaoli County, Taiwan, where surveys were conducted to investigate local attitudes to leopard cats Prionailurus bengalensis.
(Pei et al., 2014). For example, in Miaoli County there have been disputes between those interested in preserving leop- ard cat habitat and those with other interests, such as devel- opment projects. The majority of leopard cat hotspots (quality habitat with higher density of the species) occur on privately owned land (Pei et al., 2014), and therefore the success of leopard cat conservation efforts depends on the support of private landowners. The objectives of this exploratory study were to investi-
gate how attitudes and awareness of leopard cat conserva- tion are influenced by various socio-demographic factors in Miaoli County, northern Taiwan. We also determined the frequency and nature of encounters, and whether they contribute to human–carnivore conflict and affect attitudes towards conservation. We predicted that (1) any prior nega- tive experiences involving leopard cats, such as poultry predation, would influence participants’ attitudes, and (2)indi- viduals that had participated in any conservation activities would have more favourable attitudes toward the conserva- tion of leopard cats.Weprovide novel data on local people’s attitudes toward the conservation of a threatened carnivore, and contribute to improved understanding of the human dimensions of wildlife conservation in a rapidly developing East Asian country.
Study area
We conducted the study in three townships in Miaoli County: Sanyi, Tongxiao and Yuanli (Fig. 1). These locations were chosen based on the latest data available for the distri- bution of leopard cats, and hotspots for the species (Pei et al., 2014; Chen et al., 2016). We expected that local resi- dents in these townships would have a greater chance of encountering leopard cats. Furthermore, 45% of farmers
We conducted a social survey utilizing a semi-structured questionnaire (Supplementary Table 1) during 5 July–28 August 2014. The questionnaire contained both closed- and open-ended questions. The questionnaire was adminis- tered during one-to-one interviews designed to elicit infor- mation concerning socio-demographic factors (including age, gender, education level and occupation), attitudes and perceptions regarding leopard cats, knowledge of leopard cat ecology and conservation, prior experiences with the felid, and experience with conservation organizations and/or groups. These socio-demographic variables are com- monly used in studies of attitudes to wildlife conservation (Kideghesho et al., 2007; Kansky & Knight, 2014; Mkonyi et al., 2017). We carried out preliminary tests of the questionnaire on
colleagues andmade any necessary revisions.We interviewed 150 local residents (50 per township), accounting for c. 2.5%of households. The majority of interviews were conducted in Mandarin, with a few in English and some in Taiwanese; an interpreter was present during all interviews. Each interview lasted 10–30 minutes and all were recorded, with the permis- sion of the participants. All interviews were later transcribed into English. The same researcher (IB) facilitated the ques- tionnaire in all interviews. All participants were 18 years of age or older. Before the
interview, participants were shown a picture of a leopard cat and if they were familiar with the study species they were asked to complete the questionnaire. Weutilized a combination of snowball and randomsam-
pling. Snowball sampling techniques is effective for facilitat- ing access to populations or interest groups that may be challenging to reach (Atkinson&Flint, 2001).Weemployed this technique to gain access to local people whose land overlaps leopard cat habitat, those who had lost poultry to leopard cat depredation, and individuals known locally to have hunting experience. In the centre of each township we chose locations at random using a random number generator, to recruit interviewees. To avoid bias we did not interview more than one member of any household. Based on the information collected in the interviews, par-
ticipants were categorized as either supportive or neutral/ unsupportive with respect to their attitudes towards leopard cat protection (Table 1). The strict conditions for the sup- portive group were to control for an over-representation
Oryx, 2020, 54(6), 866–872 © 2019 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605318000984
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