Assessing social perceptions of rewilding approaches in Spain using traditional domestic livestock

Abstract

Rewilding is habitat restoration that attempts to return ecosystems to their state before human alterations were imposed. Rewilding might involve actions that are not desired by society. As a result, a compromised form of rewilding has been proposed that is generally known as rewilding lite, which involves some human intervention to achieve the goals of a more natural state of ecosystems that were historically disturbed by anthropogenic influences. Rewilding lite is gaining traction in Europe where marginal agriculture areas are being abandoned. We addressed a variant that we called livestock rewilding (LR) based on the use of herbivorous livestock species to restore ecological functions and trophic complexity (functional integrity) in abandoned agricultural landscapes. Our objective was to assess societal attitudes and awareness of LR in Spain based on the answers of 1,036 respondents of a self-selecting questionnaire of 27 closed-ended questions addressed to the general public using snowball sampling, conducted between March and July 2021. Seventy-five percent of the respondents supported LR but only on the condition of imposing minimum hazards to people, crops, and property. Ranchers were the least likely societal group to support LR (58%). Women had the greatest enthusiasm for LR (79% women vs. 71% men). Horses, donkeys, and goats were the most preferred species to be included in LR programs, with pigs as the least popular after cattle and sheep. There was support for the removal of excess individuals of rewilded livestock and for the use of their meat for human consumption, especially among male respondents. Respondents were reticent to accept mortality in LR populations caused by natural stochastic events and discriminated between livestock species for population control methods. Respondents preferred non-lethal methods of population control; involving hunters was a second choice. Some hunters were reluctant to participate in population control of rewilded livestock, especially if they had to pay, and were reticent to shoot equids but keen to shoot goats. There was general support among Spanish respondents for LR, though there were significant differences between societal groups in attitudes towards the type, species, and intensity of management required to minimize hazards to people's health, crops, and the environment. Livestock rewilding is a plausible tool for the restoration of trophic complexity in abandoned agricultural land in Spain that could be used to circumvent the introduction of allochthonous wild species.