Attitudes towards leopard cats in Taiwan 869
(Table 2). However, participants who reported negative experiences had a higher proportion in the neutral/unsup- portive group (Table 2, Fig. 3a). Individuals who self- identified as farmers not only had the highest incidence of experiences with leopard cats but also of negative experi- ences with leopard cats, compared with other occupational groups; nine out of 20 experiences with leopard cats re- ported by this occupational group were negative (Fig. 3b). Farmers who reported having had negative experiences all claimed to have small-scale poultry farms. The other parti- cipants (not in the farmers group) who reported having had negative experiences with leopard cats as a result of poultry predation stated during the interviews that they were rela- tives of poultry farmers or had economic interests in a farm. Only 31.5%of 149 individuals claimed to have partici-
pated in some sort of conservation activity through an organization or group. These participants were more supportive of leopard cat protection and more aware of the ecology and status of the leopard cat (Table 2).
Discussion
FIG. 2 Attitudes towards leopard cat protection, based on (a) age (n = 141), (b) education level (n = 149)and (c)occupationof 150 interviewees in three townships in Miaoli County, Taiwan (Fig. 1).
protection compared to other occupational groups (Table 2, Fig. 2c). We found that gender did not affect attitudes towards
leopard cat protection. However, for the variable ‘knowl- edge’, the only significant association was with gender: there was a higher proportion of male participants in the medium knowledge group (Table 2). Less than half of the participants (37.6%) had personal
experiences/encounters with leopard cats. The majority of those experiences were sightings but 15 (26.8%of 56) were defined as negative experiences (mainly poultry depredation incidents (86.7%), the remainder being attributed to hunt- ing of leopard cats, which was information freely divulged by the participants). Whether or not participants had had a personal experi-
ence with leopard cats did not influence their attitudes to- ward leopard cat conservation, or their level of knowledge
More than half of the participants were supportive of leopard cat conservation, stating that the species’ habitat should be preserved and that they would be willing to help improve awareness of its current status and take part in promotional and/or educational activities supporting its conservation. The attitudinal variable for leopard cat protection was associated with the socio-demographic variables education level and occupation. Participants with higher levels of education were more supportive of leopard cat protection. Positive attitudes towards wildlife conservation have been reported to increase with higher levels of education (Casey et al., 2005;Mkonyi et al., 2017). With respect to occupation, participants in the academic group were most frequently supportive, whereas farmers were most frequently neutral/ unsupportive. This is consistent with other surveys that showed farmers havemore negative attitudes towards carni- vores than other occupational groups (Hemson et al., 2009; Liu et al., 2011). Furthermore, as predicted, we found a strong association between negative experiences with leop- ard cats (almost entirely involving poultry predation inci- dents) and unsupportive and negative attitudes towards the felid and its protection. Those who have experienced conflict with carnivores are less likely to base their decisions, and subsequent actions, regarding wildlife conservation on objective facts or knowledge, as experiences can lead to emotional prejudice and subjectivity (Inskip & Zimmerman, 2009; Slagle et al., 2012).However, we found the incidence of negative experiences with leopard cats to be relatively low, consistent with the findings of St. John et al. (2015), whose results showed that only 10 of 242 respondents surveyed
Oryx, 2020, 54(6), 866–872 © 2019 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605318000984
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