Puffins, petrels, and places: Understanding human perceptions to prevent seabird mortality due to light pollution

Fledging Hydrobates leucorhous (Leach’s Storm-Petrel) and Fratercula arctica (Atlantic Puffin), both globally vulnerable species, are regularly found stranded in coastal communities in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Stranded birds require human intervention to survive. Anecdotal observations of an apparent barriers in community engagement in helping stranded H. leucorhous compared to higher engagement for F. arctica led us to use a investigate the underlying causes of this difference using a human dimension of wildlife approach. We assessed wildlife value orientations of local people as an early effort to support conservation actions to help stranded H. leucorhous and F. arctica. We administered a questionnaire to residents (n = 320) in 4 communities and analyzed words associated for H. leucorhous and F. arctica across wildlife value orientation typologies (traditionalists, distanced, pluralists, and mutualists). In general, questionnaire respondents associated more positive words with F. arctica than with H. leucorhous. Traditionalists (people who believe that wildlife should be used for human benefit) had the least positive associations for H. leucorhous and tended to associate F. arctica with place identity to a higher degree than mutualists (people who believe that humans and wildlife are meant to co-exist). Traditionalists were less knowledgeable about H. leucorhous than pluralists (persons believing in both human benefit over wildlife and wildlife protection). These results identify the need for outreach and education to bolster public awareness about H. leucorhous and their conservation needs. Co-promoting puffin and storm-petrel conservation may be a strategy to improve community-based conservation initiatives and overcome negative perceptions about H. leucorhous.