ABSTRACT
Controlling or eradicating non-native species is necessary to mitigate damage to crops, anthropogenic resources, livestock, and native plant and animal communities. Public support is often critical to success of control and eradication activities (Bremner and Park 2007). However, accurate understanding of public awareness and knowledge about a species and its impacts is necessary to effectively design an education program that ensures public support. Few studies exist on the social aspects of wild pig (Sus scrofa) eradication (Brook and van Beest 2014), and public support for eradication or control is unlikely if stakeholders do not sufficiently understand the problem at a level comparable to professional understanding. If stakeholders do not perceive a problem, resource managers will face greater difficulty in implementing management actions. Often, public knowledge lags behind that of resource managers and public sources of information can be suspect in the form of hearsay, anecdotes, rumors, inaccurate media accounts, and superstition. Well-designed human dimension surveys provide a baseline for understanding general levels of knowledge among the public so that managers can design effective educational materials. To be effective, control or eradication programs must engage the public, not solely resource users (e.g., hunters, farmers; Brook and van Beest 2014). Moreover, as wild pig management depends heavily on cooperation of private landowners and, in certain instances, the hunting pubic, effective management also depends on support by key stakeholder groups. Even though the current distribution of wild pigs extends into northern portions of North America, most of our information on human dimensions of wild pigs and associated education programs stem from southeastern North America and Texas, which is the primary focus of this chapter.
