Mixed emotions associated with orca (
                    
                      Orcinus orca
                    
                    ) conservation strategies

Hailey Kehoe Thommen; Karin Swarbrick; Kelly Biedenweg

doi:10.1111/csp2.389

journal article Open Access Feb 26, 2021

Mixed emotions associated with orca ( Orcinus orca ) conservation strategies

Hailey Kehoe Thommen Karin Swarbrick Kelly Biedenweg

Conservation Science and Practice Vol. 3 No. 5 · Wiley

View at Publisher Save 10.1111/csp2.389

Abstract

Abstract

Orcas (
Orcinus orca
) are a charismatic species with multiple connections to local economies and culture in the Pacific Northwest. As such, emotions play a role in public perspectives and support for their conservation. This research presents the use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) emotion analysis to identify the basic emotions associated with written public responses to orca conservation proposals. We operationalized a multi‐dimensional emotion lexicon using Python 3 programing to extract the frequency and density of each basic emotion in over 17,000 public comments specific to orca conservation submitted to the Washington state governor's office. We found that respondents held a mixture of emotions. Trust was most often associated with the belief that urgent actions by state government could help orca populations, joy was most associated with statements reflecting how healthy orcas are icons for healthy ecosystems upon which all depend, and sadness was associated with statements lamenting the death of individual orcas and population extinction. These results can help conservation managers understand why people might support or reject conservation actions and move past conservation social science that has prioritized the emotional domain of fear. Moreover, NLP provides descriptive emotion analyses of big text datasets within specific conservation contexts that can be further explored through qualitative analyses.

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References

Details

Published: Feb 26, 2021
Vol/Issue: 3(5)
License: View

Authors

H

Hailey Kehoe Thommen

Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Oregon State University Corvallis Oregon USA

K

Karin Swarbrick

Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Oregon State University Corvallis Oregon USA

K

Kelly Biedenweg

Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Oregon State University Corvallis Oregon USA

Cite This Article

Hailey Kehoe Thommen, Karin Swarbrick, Kelly Biedenweg (2021). Mixed emotions associated with orca ( Orcinus orca ) conservation strategies. Conservation Science and Practice, 3(5). https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.389

Mixed emotions associated with orca ( Orcinus orca ) conservation strategies

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