There is a place for every animal, but not in my back yard: a survey on attitudes towards urban animals and where people want them to live

Abstract

Animals are a constant presence in urban environments. While there is a handful of studies that have addressed which urban animals people like, there is little knowledge on where in the city people want them to be. There is the risk of a misalignment between human urban inhabitants’ specific desires for more nature in cities and the results of urban renaturing initiatives. We conducted an online survey on inhabitants of Munich (Germany) to investigate their attitudes towards 32 different urban animals and where they want them to occur. These places ranged from their own home or garden, to different places within the city, and to outside of the city. In total, 10 000 flyers were distributed in houses surrounding 40 city squares, and 305 people participated. We found that people rather placed animals further away than close to home. There were clear differences between different animal species in where they were placed by people, from species being placed close to home, to species wanted only outside the city. There were also clear differences in attitude towards the different animals, and participants on averaged placed animals closer to home if they liked them more. People have clear preferences for the placing of different animals in an urban context. Knowledge on these preferences can help to design targeted conservation actions and environmental education programs.