Aware or not aware? A literature review reveals the dearth of evidence on recreationists awareness of wildlife disturbance

As nature‐based recreational activities keep increasing, so does human pressure on wildlife. Several recent reviews provide a comprehensive overview of the impact of recreation on wildlife, but there is no comprehensive study of how humans perceive their own impact while participating in those activities. We fill this gap by summarizing the current state of research with a systematic review of 47 articles published between 1992 and 2018. It unveiled the current lack of research on sporting activities and on terrestrial mammals (in contrast to marine animals). In 43% of the surveys, most respondents were not aware of their impact on wildlife. The variables that were most often explored to explain the perception of disturbance was the experience and knowledge of the respondents. Some interesting results arose, such as the negative correlation between the level of knowledge of wildlife disturbance and awareness, or the transfer of the responsibility of disturbance on other user groups. Although several explanations are provided to explain these counterintuitive results, drawing general patterns stemming from the range of articles we reviewed was limited by the wide heterogeneity in researches aims, protocols and survey designs. In the conclusion we make recommendations to improve the comparability of future research.