Understanding why peri-urban residents do not report wild dog impacts: an audience segmentation approach

ABSTRACT

Peri-urban populations are diverse, with residents possessing a broad range of values, knowledge and skills related to managing invasive pests. In this article, we employed the COM-B behavior change model and audience segmentation analysis to identify the main barriers that prevent Gold Coast peri-urban residents from reporting wild dog impacts to local government. Participants (n = 383) responded to a random digit dial phone survey that assessed their capability, opportunity and motivation to report wild dogs and their impacts to local government. Audience segmentation analysis identified two types of non-reporters: (a) Reluctant – perceived no benefits of reporting, it took too much effort, and believed dogs should be left alone – and (b) Receptive – acknowledged wild dogs were a threat and understood the benefits of reporting. We describe how segmentation analysis can be used to develop interventions specifically tailored to the needs of each type of non-reporter.

KEYWORDS:

• Human behavior change
• intervention design
• wild dog management
• pest management
• behavior change wheel

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the funding support through the Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre (IA CRC) and City of Gold Coast. We would like to thank Myriad Research for their assistance in the survey development and execution, and all the residents who took the time to be involved. We would also like to thank Iain Jamieson, City of Gold Coast and Dr Petra Skoien, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Biosecurity Queensland for their input into the project. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of New England (Approval No HE16_025). Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants in the study.

Notes

1. Throughout this research, we use the common name ‘wild dog’ as that is the terminology used in current legislation in Australia, however we do acknowledge that this common name has the potential to influence people’s perception of these animals (Kreplins et al., 2019).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the City of Gold Coast; Invasives Animal CRC.