The survey was administered to samples of Cape Cod voters, commercial fishers, and tourists between June and August 2021 through the mail and online through Qualtrics. A random sample of Cape Cod voters, stratified by town, was selected from Barnstable County voter lists. One person per household was randomly selected from the population of Barnstable County commercial fishery permit holders obtained from the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. Using a multi-stage sampling methodology, time blocks were randomly chosen at Cape Cod National Seashore Beaches based on visitor data during which the research team will identify tourists interested in participating in the survey.

Voters, commercial fishers, and tourists in the samples were contacted by mail and email and provided with the option of completing the survey online using a unique link or completing a survey booklet that can be mailed back in a pre-stamped return envelope. To ensure a representative sample, multiple contact attempts were made to increase the response rate. Participation in this survey was voluntary.

The study was reviewed and approved by the Salem State University Institutional Review Board. Each person was assigned a unique ID number. Answers were completely confidential and were used only as a part of statistical summaries in which no individual’s answers could be identified. After respondents completed the survey, their names were removed from the mailing list and never connected to their answers in any way.

Our research will contribute to the development of public education programs, policies, and management strategies to address conflicts related to wildlife. Following the study, findings will be shared to contribute to coexistence, public safety, management, and public education strategies.

Often, it is a few people with strong opinions that participate in public meetings and the public policy process.  These people may or may not be representative of the broader community, but without broader community participation, their opinions may drive the decision making process.  This social science study, which surveyed representative samples of voters, commercial fishers and tourists, provides decision makers with a better understanding of the broader public attitudes on what can be a controversial topic and allows them to make decisions based on science and facts, not just the opinions of a few.

The findings are available as a full report and partners will be sharing summarized results through a series of presentations.  The results will also be submitted for peer review and publication in academic journals.

The following groups will be targeted to ensure they are aware of the study results:

• Ecotour operators, since they often are communicating with the public about the marine ecosystem, sharks, and seals.
• Town and State natural resource managers, so they are aware of public attitude
• General public, so they can better understand the different attitudes and perspectives within their community

There are no specific policy recommendations; however, the study provides representative data on the public’s perceptions, which informs managers of which policies are acceptable and which ones are not acceptable.

• Since this is the first study to survey perceptions of seals and sharks on Cape Cod, this survey provides a baseline of attitudes during this one time period (June-August 2021). Follow up studies would be needed to measure attitudinal change over time.
• Results cannot be used to generalize beyond Cape Cod.
• Results provided are for each sample (i.e. voters, commercial fishers, tourists). Because of differences in sample sizes, combining or pooling the samples would distort findings.

The Potential for Conflict Index was used to look at differences in the levels of conflict and consensus in attitudes toward and beliefs about seals and sharks and their management. The Potential for Conflict Index ranges from 0 (complete consensus) to 1 (complete polarization). Small bubbles indicate more consensus; larger bubbles indicate more conflict. The center of bubbles is the mean response.

Please cite as follows:

Jackman, J., Bratton, R., Sette, L., Wood, S., Bogomolni, A., Sanderson, M., Nichols, O., Winton, M., Long, M., Dowling-Guyer, S.,  Sykes, S., Wigren, C., Rutberg, A., Baseman, D., Cummings, C., Bramante, V., & Kako, V. (2022). Human Dimensions of Rebounding Populations of Seals and Sharks on Cape Cod. https://seagrant.whoi.edu/sealshark/

In-text citation: (Jackman et al. 2022)