New Research Shows The Impacts of Messaging on Public Support for Carnivore Protection Ballot Initiatives

At the Animal-Human Policy Center, we set out to test how different messages impact public support for carnivore protection ballot initiatives. Traditional wildlife stakeholders have increasingly used “ballot box biology” arguments—claiming wildlife decisions should be left to state biologists rather than the public. Our prior research suggested that this narrative may have contributed to the defeat of Colorado’s 2024 ballot initiative to ban mountain lion and bobcat hunting. This research asked: how effective is the “ballot box biology” argument at reducing public support for carnivore protection initiatives, and what messaging increases public support for these initiatives?

We tested the “ballot box biology” argument as well as three counter-messages: (1) an educational explanation of how wildlife management combines science with public values, (2) the same message plus moral framing that highlighted the exclusionary history of wildlife management, and (3) both messages plus an “expert clarification” that revealed most state wildlife commissions are politically appointed stakeholder groups, not independent scientists. Over 2,000 U.S. residents participated in our randomized survey experiment.

Key Findings

We found that “ballot box biology” messaging was effective at reducing support for carnivore protection initiatives. None of our counter-messages significantly increased overall support for ballot initiatives, but the expert clarification message did shift beliefs: it increased recognition that the public should have a greater say in wildlife management and decreased the perception that wildlife decisions should be left solely to “experts.” Support for carnivore protection initiatives overall was most strongly predicted by mutualist values (seeing wildlife as deserving of care and rights), perceptions of supportive social norms, animal activist identity, and personal behaviors like reducing meat consumption.

Moving Forward

Overall, our results suggest that “ballot box biology” messaging will continue to undermine the effectiveness of future wildlife protection ballot initiatives if effective countermessaging is not developed and widely shared. Educational appeals about how wildlife management combines values and science will likely not increase support for carnivore protection initiatives and may even backfire. More promising approaches highlight the political nature of state wildlife commissions and emphasize the lack of fairness and representation of all voices throughout the history of wildlife management. Campaigns should also connect to widely shared mutualist values and reinforce social norms by showing that most people already support stronger protections for carnivores.

For more information, contact: Dr. Rebecca Niemiec (rebecca.niemiec@colostate.edu) 

Read the full report here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bb3ogBzw8QJ-DbS-4ipKeDyYD5NGjJaC/view