Go to the website (https://sites.warnercnr.colostate.edu/wildlifevalues/) for the study, and first review the information in the “What are Wildlife Values?” link to orient to the researchers’ characterization of Utilitarian and Mutualism values systems. In particular, you will need to know what they mean by the four wildlife value orientation types they characterize: Traditionalists, Mutualists, Pluralists , and Distanced. Perhaps you can make these meaningful for yourself by thinking of someone you know who fits into each of these four values groups, or at least imagining such a person.
Then click on the “Results” to access the reports for the US as a whole and for each state. Go to the Montana State Report.
Skim through and pick out two or three graphs to look at more closely, and note how the responses varied relative to wildlife value orientation type, and/or for hunter/anglers vs. non-hunter/anglers.
Skim the questionnaire, the “survey instrument” in the Appendix, to get a feeling for the kinds of questions researchers asked and the scale they used to measure response.
Write up a 300-400-word summary of your findings from considering this state report, and what it revealed about the power and the limitations of examining human values toward wildlife in this way. Do you believe that these four categories capture the range of attitudes present? Why or why not? Do you think the questions asked in the questionnaire are sufficient to capture a person’s wildlife values? Why or why not?
