In the United States in 2022, ** percent of Republicans reported that they owned at least one gun, and ** percent said that they lived in a household with a gun. In comparison, only ** percent of Democrats owned at least one gun, and ** percent lived in a gun household. Who are gun owners? In 2022, significantly more Democrats were in favor of limiting gun ownership in comparison to Republicans. On the other hand, more Republicans were in favor of protecting the right to own guns in comparison to Democrats. When examined by education level, respondents who said they only had some college, but no degree, were the most likely to have said that there is at least one gun in their household. However, nearly a ******* of Americans over 18 years old said that they rarely carry a gun on their person. Republicans vs Democrats Debate The gun control debate in the United States has been a highly contested one. In light of frequent mass shootings, gun control laws have become the center of policy discussions. Democratic politicians tend to put significant emphasis on their gun control policies, and are overall more in favor of stricter gun control laws and want more background checks for those who want to purchase a gun. However, Republicans tend to work in favor of gun rights.

Data and code from Cappello et al. 2024 Ecosphere

Evaluating the effects of nest management on a recovering raptor using integrated population modeling.

Abstract: Evaluating population responses to management is a crucial component of successful conservation programs. Models predicting population growth under different management scenarios can provide key insights into the efficacy of specific management actions both in reversing population decline and in maintaining recovered populations. Bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) conservation in the United States has seen many successes over the last 50 years, yet the extent to which the bald eagle population has recovered in Arizona, an important population within the Southwest region, remains an area of debate. Estimates of the species’ population trend and an evaluation of ongoing nest-level management practices are needed to inform management decisions. We developed a Bayesian integrated population model (IPM) and population viability analysis (PVA) using a 36-year dataset to assess Arizona bald eagle population dynamics and their underlying demographic rates under current and possible future management practices. We estimated that the population grew from 77 females in 1993 to 180 females in 2022, an average yearly increase of 3%. Breeding sites that had trained personnel (i.e., nestwatchers) stationed at active nests to mitigate human disturbance had 28% higher reproductive output than nests without this protection. Uncertainty around population trends was high, but scenarios that continued the nestwatcher program were less likely to predict abundance declines than scenarios without nestwatchers. Here, the IPM-PVA framework provides a useful tool both for estimating the effectiveness of past management actions and for exploring the management needs of a delisted population, highlighting that continued management action may be necessary to maintain population viability even after meeting certain recovery criteria.

Co-management has been widely promoted in protected area management on the premise that it may simultaneously enhance biodiversity conservation outcomes and improve livelihoods of the park-border communities. However, the success of this management approach remains a growing debate raising the question of its effectiveness. To contribute to this debate, we used local community perceptions and secondary ecological data to assess the extent to which co-management has effectively contributed to biodiversity conservation and socio-economic development outcomes in the Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve. Face-to-face individual interviews using a semi-structured questionnaire were used to collect data on the perceptions of co-management from 160 purposively selected heads of households. A desk study was used to collect data on trends in animal populations, animal mortality, and prohibited activities including incidences of poaching for the past 30 years (pre-and post-introduction of co-management). Results showed that local communities have positive perceptions of the conservation work in the Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve. Further, there was an improved people-park relationship and a recovery of animal populations in the reserve after the introduction of co-management. These findings point to the success of co-management in the area. However, misunderstandings over revenue sharing were still a thorny issue, somehow creating mistrust between parties. We concluded that while it may still be early to achieve more demonstrable conservation outcomes, co-management appears to bring hope for effective biodiversity conservation and socio-economic development in the Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve. Participatory evaluation of co-management involving key stakeholders is recommended in the Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve based on the findings of this study and lessons learnt over the years.

Worldwide, unsustainable use of nature threatens many ecosystems and the services they provide for a broad diversity of life, including humans. Yet, governments commonly claim that the best available science supports their policies governing extraction of natural resources. We confront this apparent paradox by assessing the complexity of the intersections among value judgments, fact claims, and scientifically verified facts. Science can only describe how nature works and predict the likely outcomes of our actions, whereas values influence which actions or objectives society ought to pursue. In the context of natural resource management, particularly of fisheries and wildlife, governments typically set population targets or use quotas. Although these are fundamentally value judgments about how much of a resource a group of people can extract, quotas are often justified as numerical guidance derived from abstracted, mathematical, or theoretical models of extraction. We confront such justifications by examining failures in transparency about value judgments, which may accompany unsupported assertions articulated as factual claims. We illustrate this with two examples. Our first case concerns protection and human use of habitats harboring the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina), revealing how biologists and policy scholars have argued for divergent roles of scientists within policy debates, and how debates between scientists engaged in policy-relevant research reveal undisclosed value judgments about communication of science beyond its role as a source of description (observation, measurement, analysis, and inference). Our second case concerns protection and use of endangered gray wolves (Canis lupus) and shows how undisclosed value judgments distorted the science behind a government policy. Finally, we draw from the literature of multiple disciplines and wildlife systems to recommend several improvements to the standards of transparency in applied research in natural resource management. These recommendations will help to prevent value-based distortions of science that can result in unsustainable uses and eventual extinctions of populations. We describe methods for communicating about values that avoid commingling factual claims and discuss approaches to communicating science that do not perpetuate the misconception that science alone can dictate policy without consideration of values. Our remedies can improve transparency in both expert and public debate about preserving and using natural resources, and thereby help prevent non-human population declines worldwide.