Exploring Reasons for Varying Support for the Status Quo among Ontario’s Moose Hunters

Abstract

ABSTRACTStrong public support for the status quo often occurs when wildlife managers propose changes to regulations and policies. We illustrated that this support is highly variable for three contexts (vague, general, and specific) that involved potentially more restrictive regulations for hunting moose (Alces alces) in northeastern Ontario, Canada. Status quo support was highest (88%) when hunters were questioned with a vague context (i.e., do you support more restrictive regulations to hunt for moose). This support was lowest (19%) when hunters were provided with detailed descriptions of restrictive options with tradeoff information about benefits of adopting new regulations (i.e., the specific context). We concluded that loss aversion and omission biases were primarily responsible for the observed variability in status quo support. We also suggest that initially strong support for the status quo might crumble when people better understand non–status quo options.