ANALYSIS OF DISCRETE, DEPENDENT-VARIABLES IN HUMAN DIMENSIONS RESEARCH - PARTICIPATION IN RESIDENTIAL WILDLIFE APPRECIATION

We demonstrate the usefulness of qualitative dependent variable regres sion techniques as modeling tools for wildlife managers interested in understanding the probability of a particular constituency participati ng in specific wildlife-related recreational activities. Understanding the degree and magnitude of the effects of socioeconomic, attitudinal , and other variables on participation is potentially important in wil dlife programming for assessing future demands for services and in pre dicting potential effects on wildlife populations. We illustrate the u se of legit and probit models on a poorly understood wildlife recreati onal activity-residential, appreciative (nonconsumptive) use. Previous investigations of appreciative recreation addressed trips away from h ome, but not activities around the home. Since most appreciative wildl ife recreation occurs in residential settings, we believe residential activities are an untapped area for wildlife agencies to orient progra mming and marketing efforts to gain new constituents. We illustrate th e application of discrete, dependent variable models to predict how pa rticipation rates respond to changes in socioeconomic variables and wh o is likely to participate.