Of the 1,300 estimated bat species on earth, over 1000 species are listed as vulnerable or endangered and many of these are threatened by harmful human behavior. Further, bats have incredible ecological significance: they eat disease-transmitting mosquitoes, pollinate at least 800-1000 species of tropical plants and disperse seeds. Unfortunately, bat conservation and outreach efforts may be hindered by fear or negative associations with night, vampires, or disease. This project uses surveys of American adults to explore factors that influence human attitudes about bats (battitudes) and their connection to bat conservation behaviors such as humane home removal of bats or installation of bat boxes. I estimated the following psychological constructs surrounding bats: a) general attitudes toward wildlife, b) bat knowledge, c) likelihood of engaging in bat conservation behavior, d) previous interactions with bats, and e) general attitudes towards bats. Wildlife attitudes and battitudes were assessed using 15 different questions on a seven-point Likert scale that captured various aspects of these constructs.
Results/Conclusions
Wildlife attitudes were significantly and positively correlated with battitudes (rho = .79, p = 1.13e-06) and they significantly predicted battitudes (p=0.00019). This suggests that Americans who feel positively about wildlife will also feel positively about bats, most likely because bats are considered wildlife. However, the slope of the best fit line is less than 1, implying that attitudes about bats may still be affected through instinctual fear or negative cultural associations. Knowledge about bats and was generally low had no effect on attitudes about bats, suggesting the presence of a knowledge-attitude gap. The lack of correlation between bat knowledge and battitudes suggests people don’t need to be educated about the ecology of bats to care about them (or vice versa). Bat interactions also did not emerge as significant predictors of battitudes, though increasing sample size may change this (p = 0.08). Respondents with positive battitudes were more likely engage in behaviors that benefit bat conservation (p = 0.00097). These data give us insight to what influences human attitudes towards bats and their potential to influence behavior and bat conservation. In addition, these findings could be crucially important to inform outreach strategies that are utilized by educators and conservation professionals.