Wildlife institutions highly salient to human attitudes toward wildlife

Efforts to promote human-wildlife coexistence may be overly focused on wildlife-related costs and benefits... Respondents who agreed with the rules governing wildlife were 30-times more likely to have positive attitudes. This new and important finding highlights the possibility that institutions that address environmental justice, including the devolution of wildlife to local communities, may be more salient than the conventional measures of costs and benefits for understanding human-wildlife coexistence. Our results suggest that much more attention should be dedicated to the role of local institutions in promoting human-wildlife coexistence.