Formal education, previous interaction and perception influence the attitudes of people toward the conservation of snakes in a large urban center of northeastern Brazil Pinheiro et al. Pinheiro et al. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine (2016) 12:25 DOI 10.1186/s13002-016-0096-9 Pinheiro et al. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine (2016) 12:25 DOI 10.1186/s13002-016-0096-9 RESEARCH Open Access Formal education, previous interaction and perception influence the attitudes of people toward the conservation of snakes in a large urban center of northeastern Brazil Luan Tavares Pinheiro1,2*, João Fabrício Mota Rodrigues1,3 and Diva Maria Borges-Nojosa1 Abstract Background: The attitudes and perceptions of people toward animals are influenced by sociodemographic factors, such as formal education and gender, and by personal experience. Understanding these interactions is critical for the establishment of conservation strategies for animals that have conflictual relationships with humans, such as snakes. Our study aims to explain how perceptions and the human fear of snakes vary and are influenced by formal education and gender. In addition, it aims to show how prior interaction with these animals influence these perceptions and the human fear toward snakes and how these perceptions and fear influence the importance of conservation of these animals. Methods: We collected data from June 2010 to December 2013 using questionnaires given to 1142 visitors of a scientific serpentarium (Núcleo Regional de Ofiologia da Universidade Federal do Ceará) in the municipality of Fortaleza, northeastern Brazil. Results and Discussion: Negative perceptions toward snakes were less frequent according to an increase in levels of schooling. Women had more negative perceptions and were more afraid of snakes than were men. Prior interaction with snakes decreased the occurrence of negative perceptions and reduced the level of human fear of these animals. People with negative perceptions classified the conservation of snakes as not important and were more afraid of these animals. Understanding the relationship between sociodemographic factors, prior experiences, perceptions, fear, and the importance given to conservation can help to better understand human attitudes toward snakes. Conclusions: Environmental education activities considering gender differences, involving preliminary interaction with snakes and focusing on priority targets identified in our study, such as people with low formal education, can increase the efficiency of measures for the conservation of these animals. Keywords: Ethnoherpetology, Ethnozoology, Fear, Gender, Environmental Education, Animal Conservation, Fortaleza, Ceará, Reptiles, Squamata * Correspondence: [email protected] 1Núcleo Regional de Ofiologia da Universidade Federal do Ceará (NUROF-UFC), Depto. Biologia, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Campus do Pici, Fortaleza, CE 60440-554, Brazil 2Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biologia de Vertebrados, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG 30535-610, Brazil Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © 2016 The Author(s). Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Pinheiro et al. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine (2016) 12:25 Page 2 of 7 Background descriptive, showing list of hunted species, popular beliefs The records of interactions between animals and people or lists of reptiles used in traditional folk medicine [14]. In are very old, as evidenced by numerous indications, such this sense, there are few studies in Brazil that address the as cave paintings, that report various types of human– conflicting relationship with these animals testing hypoth- animal interactions [1]. However, this relationship was eses for their possible explanations (but see [27]). not always harmonious, with conflicts occurring when Snakes have historically been persecuted and the target animals are considered competitors or dangerous, a fact of negative attitudes in many countries [15, 17, 20, 28]. that may reflect a situation where the animal really In rural areas of Brazil, the most common attitude of endangers human lives or due cultural aspects, such as people when they find snakes is simply to kill them beliefs and religious traditions [2]. In addition, human [25, 29]. In a study conducted in northeastern Brazil, attitudes toward animals are strongly influenced by all 124 interviewed hunters said that they kill any perceptions and personal experience related to them [3–5]. snake they encounter in their daily lives [25]. This There are many factors that can affect the perceptions and shows that the current situation found in Brazil involves attitudes of people toward animals. These factors act to- indiscriminate killing of several species of snakes, both gether and include specific animal attributes (shape, size, venomous and non-venomous. The causes of these nega- behaviour, use by humans), individual human attributes tive attitudes are diverse: religious factors, such as biblical (gender, age, formal education, urban or rural residence) quotations that picture the snake as “villains”,cultural and cultural influences (religious, myths) [4]. Fear related to issues such as myths involving these animals [15], evolu- animals is another important factor that can influence the tionary influences, evidenced by the high prevalence of attitudes of people towards animals. The fear of certain snake fear in experiments involving humans and monkeys species can be explained by evolutionary approaches [6], [6, 30], and personal experience with snakes [8]. There- cultural influences [4, 7] and social learning [8]. fore, the interaction between humans and snakes must be Previous experience with animals can also influence taken into account for the development and adoption of perceptions and actions toward them. This may be seen effective conservation strategies for these animals [2]. in surveys of visitors to museums and zoos, which report Thus, our study aims to understand how perceptions that the attitudes of people toward the animals changed and fear of humans toward snakes vary according to after visiting these places [9, 10]. Besides, some studies formal education and gender, how previous interactions also report that positive interactions with animals help with these animals influence these perceptions and fear, in the treatment of phobias related mainly to snakes and finally, how the perceptions and fear influence the [11–13]. importance of the conservation of snakes. With this, we Ethnozoology seeks to understand these relations can provide a basis for the development of future con- between humans and animals [14]. Many studies try to servation actions for these animals, focusing on specific explain how these attitudes and perceptions toward human groups with the greatest conflicts with snakes, animals are influenced by sociodemographic factors, acting directly on the roots of the existence of a negative such as formal education and gender. Some studies sug- relationship. gest that formal education can have an effect on people’s attitudes toward animals, indicating that a higher levels of schooling of the person is reflected in more positive Methods attitudes held by the person [15, 16]. Ceríaco [17] sug- Data collection gested that people with higher levels of schooling have The study group was composed of visitors from extension fewer misperceptions about the herpetofauna linked to projects of the Núcleo Regional de Ofiologia da Universi- folklore, which could be explained by their greater for- dade Federal do Ceará (NUROF-UFC), a scientific serpen- mal knowledge when compared to people with low tarium legalised by the Instituto Brasileiro do Meio levels of schooling. Among the sociodemographic Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis (IBAMA) factors, gender presents a clearer pattern in relation to and the Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da perceptions: women have more negative attitudes and Biodiversidade (ICMBio), located at the Campus do Pici, fear toward many animal groups, such as bats and spi- Fortaleza, Ceará, northeastern Brazil. Data were collected ders [18], carnivorous predators [19] and snakes [20]. between July 2010 and December 2013 using a structured Ethnoherpetology, a subdivision of ethnozoology, focus interview with a questionnaire (Additional file 1) [31]. in human interactions with reptiles and amphibians [21]. Visitation in NUROF-UFC was composed by organized Ethnoherpetological studies in Brazil, address different groups of students (primary, secondary and higher educa- approaches, such as traditional medicinal use [22, 23], tion), police, and health professionals, among others. The folklore [15, 24] and hunting [25, 26]. Despite their differ- visitants were driven to NUROF-UFC by their educational ent aims and approaches, these studies are mainly institutions or work company and the visitation to Pinheiro et al. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine (2016)