RAPID: Risk Narratives Across Time and Space in Urban-Wildlife Conflict

人类与野生动物的冲突是一种耦合的动态，同时威胁着生态和人类健康。城市发展和农业扩张导致许多物种的资源枯竭，从而加剧了人类与野生动物的冲突，并使人们越来越担心，与野生动物接近的人类感染疾病的风险更高。当危机以一种尖锐的方式出现（例如，聚焦事件）时，以叙事形式传达的风险就会加剧。本研究测量了利益相关者风险叙述、信息使用和政策偏好随时间和空间的变化。为了研究风险叙事在空间和时间上的动态本质，本项目考察了澳大利亚昆士兰州北部突然发生的人类与野生动物的冲突，在那里，前所未有的高温事件导致了眼镜狐（翼狐）的大量死亡。州和地方应对这一创纪录事件的资源不足导致了一场危机，州和地方对蝙蝠福利、疾病传播给人类的潜在风险（例如，lyssav病毒）以及腐烂的蝙蝠尸体和蛆感染引起的疾病感到担忧。这场危机是飞狐管理的焦点事件，因此团体正在动员对抗努力：将眼镜飞狐列为濒危物种，并从城市地区移除飞狐栖息地（例如，大型老无花果树）。在这个蝙蝠-人类系统中有一个耦合的特征，它创造了一种新的动态：蝙蝠死亡的规模加上政府行动的瘫痪，使得居民立即采取行动（即围捕和袋装尸体）。这种新动力的结果是风险叙述的加剧，因为利益相关者在高密度城市社区中为飞狐解释这些事件的意义。鉴于这一危机的直接出现，该项目试图通过风险叙事和焦点事件之间的时空关系来理解城市野生动物冲突。为了了解时间和空间对风险叙述的影响，研究小组进行了小组访谈和小组调查。当前危机事件作为基线风险叙述数据的T1 (i)了解随着新信息、政策决策和事件的出现，利益相关者的风险叙述如何随时间（T2 = 6个月和T3 = 12个月）变化（或保持稳定），以及（ii）捕捉风险叙述的空间变化作为与大规模死亡率栖息地距离的函数。通过对凯恩斯居民、野生动物护理人员、卫生保健工作者和地方议会成员的小组访谈进行纵向研究，分析叙事结构和情绪的变化。小组访谈提供了关键数据，使研究人员能够探索叙事结构和情绪变化的因果指标（例如，新信息，对系统的新外生冲击）。通过对居民进行问卷调查，对居民的叙事结构、风险感知、管理狐蝠的首选解决方案和影响进行了纵向研究。这些小组调查数据测量了响应变量随时间的变化以及与死亡事件的距离。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Human-wildlife conflict is a coupled dynamic that simultaneously threatens both ecological and human health. Urban development and agricultural expansion have resulted in the depletion of resources for many species, thus intensifying human-wildlife conflicts and increasing concerns of higher risks of disease infecting humans in proximity to wildlife. When a crisis emerges in an acute fashion (e.g., focusing event), there is an intensification of risk communicated in narrative form. This research measures changes in stakeholders risk narratives, information use, and policy preferences over space and time. To study the dynamic nature of risk narratives over space and time, this project examines a sudden human-wildlife conflict in northern Queensland, Australia, where unprecedented heat events have resulted in mass mortality of spectacled flying foxes (Pteropus conspicillatus). Inadequate state and local resources to deal with this record event have led to a crisis, whereby state and local concerns have flared over bat welfare, potential risks of disease being passed to humans (e.g., Lyssavirus), and illness from rotting bat corpses and maggot infestation. This crisis is a focusing event for flying fox management, whereby groups are mobilizing countervailing efforts: to list the spectacled flying fox as endangered and to remove flying fox habitat (e.g., large old fig trees) from urban areas. There is a coupled feature in this bat-human system that has created a new dynamic: the scale of the bat deaths coupled with a paralysis of governmental action leaving residents to take immediate action (i.e., round up and bag carcasses). The result of this new dynamic is an intensification of risk narratives as stakeholders make meaning of these events for flying foxes in high density urban communities. Given the immediate emergence of this crisis, this project seeks to understand urban-wildlife conflict through a temporal and spatial relationship between risk narratives and focusing events. To understand temporal and spatial effects on risk narratives, the research team conducts panel interviews and a panel survey. The present crisis event serves as T1 for baseline risk narrative data (i) to understand how stakeholders' risk narratives change (or remain stable) over time (T2 = 6 months and T3 = 12 months) as new information, policy decisions, and events emerge, and (ii) to capture the spatial variation of risk narratives as a function of distance from mass mortality roost sites. A longitudinal study of panel interviews of residents, wildlife carers, health care workers, and local council members in Cairns is conducted to analyze changes in narrative construct and sentiment. Panel interviews provide critical data to enable the researchers to probe for causal indicators of change in narrative construct and sentiment (e.g., new information, new exogenous shocks to the system). A longitudinal study using a panel survey of residents is conducted to analyze changes in narrative construct, risk perception, preferred solutions for flying fox management, and affect. These panel survey data measure changes in the response variables over time as well distance from the mortality event.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.