Household Factors Influencing Participation in Bird Feeding Activity: A National Scale Analysis

Ameliorating pressures on the ecological condition of the wider landscape outside of protected areas is a key focus of conservation initiatives in the developed world. In highly urbanized nations, domestic gardens can play a significant role in maintaining biodiversity and facilitating human-wildlif...

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Main Authors:	Davies, Zoe G., Fuller, Richard A., Dallimer, Martin, Loram, Alison, Gaston, Kevin J.
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2012
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3386264/

id	pubmed-3386264
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-33862642012-07-03 Household Factors Influencing Participation in Bird Feeding Activity: A National Scale Analysis Davies, Zoe G. Fuller, Richard A. Dallimer, Martin Loram, Alison Gaston, Kevin J. Research Article Ameliorating pressures on the ecological condition of the wider landscape outside of protected areas is a key focus of conservation initiatives in the developed world. In highly urbanized nations, domestic gardens can play a significant role in maintaining biodiversity and facilitating human-wildlife interactions, which benefit personal and societal health and well-being. The extent to which sociodemographic and socioeconomic factors are associated with engagement in wildlife gardening activities remain largely unresolved. Using two household-level survey datasets gathered from across Britain, we determine whether and how the socioeconomic background of a household influences participation in food provision for wild birds, the most popular and widespread form of human-wildlife interaction. A majority of households feed birds (64% across rural and urban areas in England, and 53% within five British study cities). House type, household size and the age of the head of the household were all important predictors of bird feeding, whereas gross annual household income, the occupation of the head of the household, and whether the house is owned or rented were not. In both surveys, the prevalence of bird feeding rose as house type became more detached and as the age of the head of the household increased. A clear, consistent pattern between households of varying size was less evident. When regularity of food provision was examined in the study cities, just 29% of households provided food at least once a week. The proportion of households regularly feeding birds was positively related to the age of the head of the household, but declined with gross annual income. As concerns grow about the lack of engagement between people and the natural environment, such findings are important if conservation organizations are successfully to promote public participation in wildlife gardening specifically and environmentally beneficial behaviour in society more generally. Public Library of Science 2012-06-28 /pmc/articles/PMC3386264/ /pubmed/22761872 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0039692 Text en Davies et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Davies, Zoe G. Fuller, Richard A. Dallimer, Martin Loram, Alison Gaston, Kevin J.
spellingShingle	Davies, Zoe G. Fuller, Richard A. Dallimer, Martin Loram, Alison Gaston, Kevin J. Household Factors Influencing Participation in Bird Feeding Activity: A National Scale Analysis
author_facet	Davies, Zoe G. Fuller, Richard A. Dallimer, Martin Loram, Alison Gaston, Kevin J.
author_sort	Davies, Zoe G.
title	Household Factors Influencing Participation in Bird Feeding Activity: A National Scale Analysis
title_short	Household Factors Influencing Participation in Bird Feeding Activity: A National Scale Analysis
title_full	Household Factors Influencing Participation in Bird Feeding Activity: A National Scale Analysis
title_fullStr	Household Factors Influencing Participation in Bird Feeding Activity: A National Scale Analysis
title_full_unstemmed	Household Factors Influencing Participation in Bird Feeding Activity: A National Scale Analysis
title_sort	household factors influencing participation in bird feeding activity: a national scale analysis
description	Ameliorating pressures on the ecological condition of the wider landscape outside of protected areas is a key focus of conservation initiatives in the developed world. In highly urbanized nations, domestic gardens can play a significant role in maintaining biodiversity and facilitating human-wildlife interactions, which benefit personal and societal health and well-being. The extent to which sociodemographic and socioeconomic factors are associated with engagement in wildlife gardening activities remain largely unresolved. Using two household-level survey datasets gathered from across Britain, we determine whether and how the socioeconomic background of a household influences participation in food provision for wild birds, the most popular and widespread form of human-wildlife interaction. A majority of households feed birds (64% across rural and urban areas in England, and 53% within five British study cities). House type, household size and the age of the head of the household were all important predictors of bird feeding, whereas gross annual household income, the occupation of the head of the household, and whether the house is owned or rented were not. In both surveys, the prevalence of bird feeding rose as house type became more detached and as the age of the head of the household increased. A clear, consistent pattern between households of varying size was less evident. When regularity of food provision was examined in the study cities, just 29% of households provided food at least once a week. The proportion of households regularly feeding birds was positively related to the age of the head of the household, but declined with gross annual income. As concerns grow about the lack of engagement between people and the natural environment, such findings are important if conservation organizations are successfully to promote public participation in wildlife gardening specifically and environmentally beneficial behaviour in society more generally.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2012
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3386264/
_version_	1611540063451086848

Household Factors Influencing Participation in Bird Feeding Activity: A National Scale Analysis

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