Beyond message framing: Participant characteristics predict social acceptability of increased deer culling in Scotland

Wild deer are iconic symbols of Scotland's natural and cultural heritage, but their burgeoning populations are increasingly contributing to ecological and socio-economic harm. In response, the Scottish Government is considering new policy measures to increase the annual deer cull. However, deer management in Scotland is deeply rooted in cultural, economic, and ecological histories and increased culling could be morally contentious. Deer management is topical and frequently in the media. Understanding whether there is a social licence to increase the cull is valuable for anticipating public responses to and the success of suggested policy reforms. We used an online experiment to test whether members of the Scottish public perceived increasing the deer cull in Scotland to be more or less socially acceptable depending on how messages are framed in mock online news articles. Drawing from frames supported by previous literature and present in national news coverage, we tested the influence of text frames (i.e. justifications for deer culling), gain/loss frames (i.e. “increasing” a positive outcome vs. “reducing the loss of” the same positive outcome), and image frames (i.e. “healthy” vs. “unhealthy” deer and setting). Participants generally perceived increasing the cull to be more acceptable than unacceptable, indicating broad public support. We found little evidence that perceptions of acceptability are sensitive to message framing. Participants were slightly more likely to perceive increasing the deer cull as more acceptable if they were shown the healthy image frame compared to the unhealthy image frame. Instead, participants' gender identity, self-reported social identities (deer stalker, i.e. hunter, or animal protectionist), general experiences and perceptions of deer, and trust in the Scottish Government explained differences in perceptions. Policy implications. Public beliefs, knowledge, social identities, and trust in institutions can help explain why people hold different perspectives on lethal control of deer in Scotland. Engaging with these aspects could help attenuate social conflict as Scotland moves towards a more sustainable system of deer management, which will involve higher levels of culling, a controversial aspect of wildlife conservation. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.