Public Views Of Wolf Restoration In Michigan
(Survey company: HBRS, Inc) Surveyed 5 primary groups: Upper Peninsula (UP) residents, Lower Peninsula (LP) residents, hunters, trappers, and farmers. LP residents had the lowest response rate and farmers had the highest.
‘Considerable support occurred among all major sample groups, with the exception of farmers, for the restoration of the wolf to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
‘Deer hunters and trappers expressed the strongest support for wolf recovery.
Highest ranked reason for wolf reintroduction for UP residents: ‘because they have a right to exist.’ Lowest ranked reason(s) for the same group: ‘to be able to harvest their pelts’ and ‘so that some people will be able to hint them.’
‘Most respondents supported large fines and even prison sentences for the poaching of wolves.’
Trappers had the most knowledge about wolves and LP residents had the least.
‘Farmers expressed the greatest the greatest antagonism and antipathy toward [the wolf] and its conservation relatively hostile attitudes toward the wolf also occurred among the elderly and less educated groups’