Wild dog management: understanding rural landholders’ willingness to participate in coordinated control programs

Figures & data

Table 1. Identified themes from the expert interviews and literature review and the 22 COM (Capability, Opportunity and Motivation) items used in the landholder survey.

Identified themes	Reliability (Cronbach α)
Awareness of local wild dog problem (2 items)	.71
1. Not aware of wild dog problems in their local area (reverse scored)
2. Wild dogs are causing a problem on their property
Capability to participate in coordinated control (5 items)	.73
3. Know best control methods to use
4. Self-conscious of skill level to conduct control methods (reverse scored)
5. Not confident in conducting control (reverse scored)
6. Cooperation with other landholders not difficult
7. Not aware when group programs happening (reverse scored)
Opportunity to participate in coordinated control (5 items)	.66
8. Do not have the time to plan group programs (reverse scored)
9. Convenient to participate at specified time
10. Participation too costly (reverse scored)
11. Other residences are too close to conduct methods (reverse scored)
12. Family and friends support participation
Motivation to participate in coordinated control (5 items)	.72
13. Believe group methods are ineffective (reverse scored)
14. Prefer to do own control (reverse scored)
15. Want to help the community with this problem
16. Believe it’s the government’s responsibility (reverse-score)
17. Neighbours do not participate in the program (reverse scored)
Motivation to use available control methods (5 items)	.84
18. Believe wild dogs should not be harmed (reverse scored)
19. Believe control methods used are inhumane (reverse scored)
20. Believe control will not harm wildlife
21. Prefer not to use baits (reverse scored)
22. Believe control will harm working dogs (reverse scored)

Table 2. Summary of hierarchical regression analysis: Variables predicting current participation in coordinated wild dog management.

							95% CI of B
Predictors	R	R2	Adj R2	F (df)	p	B	LB	UB	sr2	r
Model 1 (Demographics)	.22	.05	.02	1.60 (4,189)	.15
Age						−.01	−.03	.01	.01	−.05
Property area						−.00	.00	.00	.00	−.02
Years of residence						.01	.00	.02	.02	.14
Presence of small livestock						.09	−.41	.59	.00	.01
Landholder type						.05	−.51	.60	.00	−.07
Main income source						.37	−.09	.82	.01	.17
Model 2 (Demographics & COM items)	.54	.29	.25	7.31 (10, 183)	< .001
Age						−.01	−.03	.01	.00	−.05
Property area						−.00	−.00	.00	.00	−.02
Years of residence						.01	.00	.02	.01	.14
Presence of small livestock						.19	−.27	.64	.00	.01
Landholder type						.19	−.31	.69	.00	−.07
Main income source						.19	−.22	.60	.00	.17
Awareness of local wild dog problem						.26	.08	.43	.03	.41
Capability to participate in coordinated control						.04	−.23	.31	.00	.34
Opportunity to participate in coordinated control						.17	−.20	.54	.00	.36
Motivation to participate in coordinated control						.47	.12	.82	.03	.44
Motivation to use control methods						−.06	−30	.18	.00	.31

B unstandardised beta coefficient, CI confidence interval, LB lower bound, UB upper bound, sr2 squared semi-partial correlation, r Pearson correlation.

Figure 1. Four behaviour profiles based on respondents’ participation in wild dog baiting, shooting and trapping over the previous three year.

Table 3. Model fit indices for the latent profile analysis solutions.

Profile solution	BIC	Entropy	LMR
2	1080.64	.98	p = .01
3	928.39	1.00	p = .22
4	902.44	.99	p = .01
5	893.13	.99	p = .11
6	897.68	.99	p = .35

Notes: BIC – Bayesian information criterion; LMR – Lo-Mendell-Rubin likelihood ratio test.