Understanding whether people view non-native species as belonging in a place will help guide important conservation efforts ranging from eradications of exotics to re-introduction of extirpated species. In this manuscript we describe the degree to which Swedish hunters perceive key wildlife species as belonging in Swedish nature. We surveyed 2014 Swedish hunters randomly selected from a database of all registered hunters with a 47.5% response rate. We measured hunters’ perceptions of the belonging of 10 key species on the Swedish landscape, compared them with confidence intervals for proportions, and predicted them using regression models. Construct validity was assessed through pretesting and focus groups. Our results suggest Swedish hunters consider species introduced wholly by humans as less likely to belong in Sweden compared with species that evolved in situ, species with negative socio-economic impact as less likely to belong in Sweden compared with species with no impact or positive economic impacts, and species with wide distributions to be seen as more likely to belong in Sweden compared with those with narrow distributions. Perceptions of wolves, fallow deer, and European rabbits differed from these broad trends potentially due to unique cultural constructions of belonging for the species and the duration since anthropogenic introductions for the latter species. Age was generally negatively related with considering species as belonging in Swedish nature, whereas few effects were detected for other demographic variables. This study suggests multiple drivers of perceived belonging for species exist, and may include where species evolved, socio-economic impacts of species, breadth of distribution, cultural naturalization, and age of stakeholders making assessments. These findings highlight the importance of managing invasive species before they become culturally naturalized or gain broad geographic distribution.

中文翻译：

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评估瑞典猎人如何确定自然界中的哪些物种

了解人们是否认为非本地物种属于某个地方，将有助于指导重要的保护工作，从根除外来物种到重新引入已灭绝的物种。在本手稿中，我们描述了瑞典猎人对重要野生动植物物种属于瑞典自然的感知程度。我们调查了2014年瑞典猎人，他们是从所有注册猎人的数据库中随机选择的，答复率为47.5％。我们测量了猎人对瑞典景观中10个关键物种的归属的感知，将它们与比例的置信区间进行比较，并使用回归模型对其进行了预测。通过预测试和焦点小组评估构建体有效性。我们的结果表明，瑞典猎人认为，与原地进化的物种相比，完全由人类引入的物种在瑞典的归属可能性较小；与没有经济影响或正面经济影响的物种相比，具有负面社会经济影响的物种在瑞典的归属可能性较小和分布较窄的物种相比，分布较宽的物种更有可能属于瑞典。狼，小鹿和欧洲兔子的认知与这些广泛的趋势不同，这可能是由于该物种的独特文化结构和自后一种物种的人为引进以来的持续时间。年龄通常与认为物种属于瑞典自然界负相关，而其他人口统计学变量几乎没有发现影响。这项研究表明存在着多种感知物种归属的驱动因素，其中可能包括物种进化的地方，物种的社会经济影响，分布广度，文化归化以及利益相关者年龄的评估。这些发现凸显了在入侵物种被文化归化或获得广泛的地理分布之前管理其重要性。