Abstract
Simple SummaryDespite the benefits that bats offer the ecosystem, these animals are feared due to mythological beliefs and their association with dirt and disease. The COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated this situation, exacerbating the already habitual attacks on bats. Today there is an urgent need to address the human–bat conflict to develop conservation policies. Understanding peoples’ attitudes towards bats is a crucial part of this process. This study aimed to design the Bats Attitudes Standard Scale (BAtSS) and to analyze its properties. We developed a scale and analyzed its properties in a sample of 1639 Chileans. The final BAtSS consists of 34 questions on a five-point response scale. It has four factors (scientistic, positivistic, negativistic, and myths) and three subfactors (emotional negativistic, behavioral negativistic, and cognitive negativistic). The results showed that the scale was reliable and valid for measuring participants’ attitudes. Women and participants with a lower level of education were more negativistic and less positivistic. People with a higher level of education had a less mythological view of bats. We also analyzed the attitudes which would be more/less difficult to change. The BAtSS is an adequate tool and could help to understand and solve human–wildlife conflicts.Despite the benefits that bats offer the ecosystem, these animals are feared and attacked. The COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated this situation. Today there is an urgent need to address the human-bat conflict to develop conservation policies. Understanding peoples’ attitudes towards bats are critical for this process. This study aimed to design the Bats Attitudes Standard Scale (BAtSS) and to analyze its psychometric properties. We developed an initial version of the scale in which we established the content validity; we analyzed the items and structure in a pilot sample. In the next phase, we examined psychometric properties in a sample of 1639 Chileans. The final BAtSS consists of 34 Likert-type items configured in an oblique-hierarchical structure of four factors (scientistic, positivistic, negativistic, and myths) and three facets (emotional negativistic, behavioral negativistic, and cognitive negativistic). It presents adequate internal consistency, and the analysis of concurrent validity confirms the scale’s capacity to discriminate between groups. Women and participants with a lower level of education are more negativistic and less positivistic. People with a higher level of education have a less mythological view of bats. We also analyzed the items under the assumptions of item response theory (IRT).
Highlights
In late March 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic, a group of villagers fromCulden, Peru, used burning torches to attack a colony of 500 bats which lived in a cave.Alerted by the rumor that COVID-19 started when someone in China ate bat soup, the residents corralled the animals and burnt them, killing 300 specimens
The majority of the bats in the Culden colony were of the genus Myotis, insectivores which are inoffensive to human beings
Despite the many benefits they provide to the planet, bats have been subject to several stigmas, misunderstandings, and folk beliefs [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
Summary
In late March 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic, a group of villagers fromCulden, Peru, used burning torches to attack a colony of 500 bats which lived in a cave.Alerted by the rumor that COVID-19 started when someone in China ate bat soup, the residents corralled the animals and burnt them, killing 300 specimens. Peru, used burning torches to attack a colony of 500 bats which lived in a cave. The majority of the bats in the Culden colony were of the genus Myotis, insectivores which are inoffensive to human beings. This is not the first time that bats have come under the spotlight when a virus affects humans. Some of them have developed an immune system prepared to resist different types of viruses, including coronaviruses. Understanding their biological characteristics could help the scientific community to find key mechanisms to contain
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