Reassessing public opinion of captive cetacean attractions with a photo elicitation survey

Abstract

BackgroundCaptive cetacean attractions are growing in number globally, their operators citing entertainment, education, and conservation as benefits. Those for and against developing such attractions claim public support. Previous public opinion research, however, shows little consensus, partly due to the introduction of biases in study design that influence participants’ responses. Those involved in, or concerned with, developing and licensing these attractions need to better understand what drives the lack of consensus to take socially-acceptable decisions.MethodsWe reviewed previous research on public opinion of cetacean captivity, noting possible sources of bias. Survey question wording can be a major source of introduced bias, so we used an open-ended photo elicitation approach. We showed tourists in the Turks Caicos Islands (N = 292) images of a marine mammal park (MMP) killer whale show and a swim-with-the-dolphins (SWTD) attraction and asked for their qualitative comments on the potential development of each. They also indicated how likely they would be to visit each on a Likert scale.ResultsRespondents were generally against visiting MMP killer whale shows, with 60.9% not likely to visit. SWTD attractions were more popular; 60.3% were likely to visit. For SWTD, USA residents were more likely to visit; older respondents and those staying in all-inclusive resorts were less likely. Those staying in all-inclusive resorts were also less likely to visit MMP killer whale shows. The great majority of qualitative comments centred on either entertainment value or animal welfare concerns. There were very few, if any, comments on the education or conservation value of these attractions.DiscussionOur findings contradict several previous studies on public opinion of captive cetaceans that did not use photo elicitation. The support shown for MMP killer whale shows in this survey was well below that claimed by studies conducted on behalf of captive cetacean attraction operators. Opposition to SWTD was also noticeably lower than that found in surveys conducted with wild cetacean tourism participants. This difference can likely be attributed to the different survey populations and settings, but this variation is also very likely attributable to researcher-introduced bias. While photo selection can introduce bias, photo elicitation reduces reliance on pre-scripted questions and responses, and seems to effectively reduce other forms of bias. Allowing open-ended responses, where participants responded to an image, seems to have given a more representative understanding of what is at the forefront of the public’s mind than closed questioning. These conclusions, among others made in this study, suggest that development decisions for captive cetacean attractions are being made on imprecise data. Going forward, data collected via responder-led, open-ended, bias-minimising approaches should at least be considered when informing such decisions.

Problem Perspectives and Grizzly Bears: A Case Study of Alberta’s Grizzly Bear Recovery Policy

“…We then conducted semi-structured interviews across Alberta's BMAs to gather first-hand accounts, perspectives and experiences with grizzly bear recovery policy from the people who live, work and recreate in these areas (BMA; Laswell, 1971;Clark, 2002;Yin, 2014). We used a key informant list, generated by the provincial governments' carnivore specialist, to develop an initial interview sample of government biologists, landowners (e.g., cattle ranchers, crop farmers), natural resource sector personnel (forestry, petroleum industry, mining), and environmental non-government organizations (ENGOs; Noy, 2008;Drury et al, 2011). Additional participants were identified via chain referral, which enabled us to collect first-hand interview data grounded in the participants' own words, from a diverse range of people across Alberta's BMAs (Biernacki and Waldorf, 1981;Noy, 2008;Goldman et al, 2010;Bixler, 2013;Vernon and Clark, 2015).…”

“…Face-to-face interviews were preferred, though telephone sessions were made available if there were constraints to meeting in-person (Novick, 2008). A semi-structured interview guide informed by similar studies was used, with latitude to explore topics more deeply as they emerged through the interview (Drury et al, 2011;Bennett, 2016). An iterative process of collection-transcription-analysis was used to determine corroboration and saturation of interview data, which included comparing and contrasting data to develop provisional descriptions of the problem perspectives (Patton, 1990;Clark et al, 2008;Rust and Taylor, 2016).…”

Public opinion of captive cetacean attractions: A critique of Wassermannet al. (2018)

“…Instead of possible bias introduced in the wording and response alternatives of closed-ended questions, the locus for bias in openended questions is transferred to response interpretation and coding (Burns, 1989;Campbell, 75 Quincy, Osserman, & Pederson, 2013;Passer, 2017). In the case of Wassermann et al (2018), 76 such bias may have been introduced on two levels. First, rather than using a recording device to produce an accurate transcript of 78 respondents' comments, surveyors simply "took notes" on these comments.…”

“…Second, these summarized notes on respondents' comments were then coded as expressing either positive or negative views of each type of marine mammal attraction, and also for any expressed reasons for these opinions, such as appropriate for children (positive) or animal welfare concerns (negative). Wassermann et al (2018) neither provided details about their criteria for classifying these opinions (i.e., operational definitions) nor any measure of intercoder reliability. The lack of these details is extremely problematic, as studies have shown that the high degree of inference needed to categorize open-ended responses can lead to a high probability of initial error and bias in interpretation, often resulting in low levels of agreement during initial coding (e.g., Burns, 1989;Carey et al, 1996;Hagelin, 1999;Hruschka et al, 2004;Passer, 2017).…”

“…Unfortunately, in the case of the Wassermann et al (2018) study, although some of their 56 techniques (e.g., hiding the true purpose of the study by asking about both cetacean and non-57 cetacean attractions) undoubtedly supported their stated goal of obtaining a non-biased measure of public opinion on this topic, there are also quite a few errors in methodology and reporting that both bias their results and conclusions in other ways, and in some cases even make it impossible to ascertain the actual results of their survey. Below, we highlight several major methodological issues and potential misrepresentation of the results from the study by Wassermann et al (2018).…”