The Impact of Messaging on Public Support for Carnivore Protection Ballot Initiatives

The public’s values related to wildlife are shifting in much of the United States, resulting in a growing number of citizen-led ballot initiatives focused on greater protection of wildlife, especially carnivores. To fight these ballot initiatives, traditional stakeholder groups have used “ballot box biology” messaging, arguing that wildlife decisions should be made by biologists, not the public, and that the public should trust state wildlife agencies to make “responsible science-based” management decisions rather than going to the ballot. Previous research found that this ballot box biology messaging may have been important in persuading the public to reject a 2024 Colorado ballot initiative to protect carnivores from trophy hunting. However, this messaging fails to recognize the roles of both science and values in driving wildlife management decisions, the exclusion of diverse perspectives and values in the history of wildlife management and governance, and the influence of political actors rather than scientists inside state wildlife agencies. The success of wildlife protection initiatives moving forward will therefore require an understanding of how messaging can be crafted to address the myths perpetuated by the “ballot box biology” arguments.