Many wild species visit urban areas daily, including carnivores. From a rewilding perspective, carnivore presence is positive. However, this is often not the case from the citizens’ perspective. Encounters with predators may cause problems, increasing safety concerns. This could reduce citizen’s well-being, leading to harmful management practices towards carnivores. Nonetheless, recent studies found that the presence of carnivores is not always considered negatively. These findings indicate a potential connection between carnivore presence and the human experience of nature. Therefore, studying how carnivores in urban areas are perceived by citizens and what kind of impact their presence could have on human well-being would contribute to understand how wildlife influences human connection to nature. Citizens usually have strong opinions about carnivores as the recent reactions towards Finland’s government’s decision to shoot a fixed number of wolves for population control have shown. Therefore, our findings will provide help for evidence-based wildlife management in urban and semi-urban environments, taking into account citizens’ needs based on their attitudes. 

To study this, we are using two questionnaires: one focusing on urban meso-carnivores (red fox (Vulpes vulpes), European badger (Meles meles) and raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides)) and the second one on large carnivores present in urban and rural forests   (grey wolf (Canis lupus), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), brown bear (Ursus arctos) and wolverine (Gulo gulo)). The first questionnaire was open between October 2024 and December 2025, collecting a total of 460 answers. The second questionnaire will start in spring 2026, and will be available both in English and Finnish, therefore, stay tuned for its opening!

Preliminary results suggest that human attitudes vary depending on the carnivore species and their respective image that citizens have of them. While foxes and badgers are appreciated, this is not the case for the non-native raccoon dog. Almost 30% of respondents wished for management measures to be taken to reduce their densities, expressing fear towards them, compared to only 7% expressing the same opinion towards foxes or badgers. These results highlight how public perception can change drastically based on the species, even if the three species are ecologically similar. 

Manuscript in preparation.