ABSTRACT
Human dimensions (HD) research investigates people’s activities, attitudes, expectations, and knowledge concerning wildlife. Citizen surveys are conducted to determine the public’s attitudes, activities, expectations, and/or knowledge concerning wildlife and its management. Developing management solutions and communication strategies to meet the needs of all stakeholders has proven to be a challenge for both wildlife management agencies and the wildlife professionals they employ. There are many roles for HD in urban wildlife management. For the sake of this discussion, however, four broad categories of assessments will be used. These include public participation in wildlife-related programs, wildlife values, quality of life issues, and conflict resolution. Urban wildlife conflict resolution issues can be placed into one of two subsets: conflicts between humans and wildlife, and conflicts between humans over wildlife resources. Wildlife professionals tend to regard human–wildlife conflict management in urban and suburban situations especially challenging due to the perceived resistance of the public to a full range of management options.
