ABSTRACT: Sea turtles are facing significant threats, including anthropogenic warming, predation from feral animals, and sea level rise. While a range of intervention options are available, resource constraints and increasing time pressures means managers face the difficult task of prioritising options. To achieve successful conservation outcomes, managers are increasingly seeking to understand the social acceptability, as well as biological plausibility and economic feasibility, of these intervention options. Previous studies have used expert opinion as predictors of social acceptability, given their technical knowledge and experience implementing the interventions; however, the assumption that the social acceptability of interventions is the same for both the general public and experts is largely untested. We tested this assumption using surveys to assess the social acceptability of 24 interventions proposed for a population of flatback turtles Natator depressus in northwest Australia. Survey responses were collected from community members (residents) and experts (resource managers and researchers). Experts were asked to provide their own opinion of acceptability and how they perceived community members would rate intervention options. In general, residents ranked interventions that directly intervene with human behaviour or the environment as more acceptable than those that directly target turtles, while experts tended to favour direct turtle interventions. Experts incorrectly predicted that the community would not be influenced by the target of the intervention. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding social acceptability of interventions before implementation to inform management decisions and engagement and communication strategies, particularly when interventions might be controversial or restrict human behaviour directly.

中文翻译：

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平背龟保护干预措施的社会可接受性：比较专家和公众的看法

摘要：海龟正面临重大威胁，包括人为变暖、野生动物的捕食和海平面上升。尽管有一系列干预选项可供选择，但资源限制和不断增加的时间压力意味着管理者面临着确定选项优先顺序的艰巨任务。为了取得成功的保护成果，管理者越来越多地寻求了解这些干预方案的社会可接受性以及生物学合理性和经济可行性。鉴于专家的技术知识和实施干预措施的经验，先前的研究已使用专家意见作为社会可接受性的预测指标；然而，干预措施的社会可接受性对于公众和专家来说是相同的这一假设在很大程度上未经检验。我们通过调查评估了针对澳大利亚西北部平背龟种群提出的 24 项干预措施的社会可接受性，从而检验了这一假设。调查回复是从社区成员（居民）和专家（资源管理者和研究人员）收集的。专家们被要求提供他们自己对可接受性的看法，以及他们认为社区成员如何评价干预方案。一般来说，居民认为直接干预人类行为或环境的干预措施比直接针对海龟的干预措施更容易接受，而专家则倾向于支持直接干预海龟。专家错误地预测社区不会受到干预目标的影响。我们的研究结果强调了在实施干预措施之前了解社会可接受性的重要性，以便为管理决策、参与和沟通策略提供信息，特别是当干预措施可能引起争议或直接限制人类行为时。