Nuisance or benefit? A study of deer-altered park landscapes in Japan

Abstract

Urban wildlife is an important component of biodiversity. Human-urban wildlife interaction has been changing, but public opinions, especially individualized opinions, are not being sufficiently incorporated into urban wildlife management decisions. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating people’s preference heterogeneity of browse lines, a unique tree landscape altered by wild deer (Cervus nippon) in Japan, as an example. We apply a latent class model to identify people’s preference heterogeneity for browse lines when people are not exposed to deer. We also apply split-sample design to examine whether people’s preferences change when they are informed that the deer created the landscape. The results confirm the existence of preference heterogeneity among people. However, we did not find a change in the aggregated willingness to pay for the park landscape after information provision. It may suggest that people are tolerant for the impact of urban wildlife even if they are not exposed to creatures. We also highlight how the results can be used by real-life urban parks and wildlife management to recognize people’s preference heterogeneity and select strategies that can most effectively address disparate views.