Ties to the Countryside: Accounting for Urbanites Attitudes toward Hunting, Wolves, and Wildlife

Forty years ago Philip M. Hauser (1962) Hauser, P. M. 1962. “Demographic and ecological changes as factors in outdoor recreation”. In Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission Study Report 22, 27–59. Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office. Google Scholar argued that classifying all urbanites without regard to their rural origins ignored the cultural effects of rural life on recreation. A population of urbanites who grew up in rural areas should be more likely to participate in hunting, for example, than multigenerational urbanites, because of the rural cultural influences on hunting. This article extends Hauser’s logic to attitudes toward hunting, wildlife, and wolves. Does where a city resident grew up make any difference? Do contacts with the countryside have an influence on the attitudes of urbanites? This article’s data, based on a national survey of Swedes, show that multigenerational urbanites, those who where born in cities of parents who lived in cities have more negative attitudes toward hunting and toward wolves, and feel that wildlife is less important, in comparison to those with rural experience. Urban residents who had more contact with the countryside had more positive attitudes toward hunting, wildlife, and wolves. As fewer urban Swedes have rural origins, support for wildlife, hunting and wolves may be expected to decline. Cultural or management actions that increase urban residents’ contacts with rural areas could, however, help promote or maintain more positive attitudes toward wildlife-related attitude objects such as hunting and wolves.