Nurse sharks (Ginglymostoma cirratum), especially juveniles, are often encountered by near-shore and shore-based recreational anglers and are suggested to exhibit minimal behavioral and physiological responses to capture, largely based on studies of adults using commercial or scientific fishing methods. To quantify the sub-lethal effects of recreational angling on juvenile nurse sharks, 27 individuals (across 31 angling events) were caught using hook-and-line fishing methods. Over a 30-min period, 4 blood samples were taken with variable time intervals between sampling (i.e., randomized ordering of an interval of 5, 10, and 15 min between each sampling event). Lactate increased by 611% (6.7 ± 2.17 mmol/L) on average over the 30-min fight, and significant relationships were identified between lactate and blood draw number, fight time, and temperature, with large effect sizes. Significant relationships were also detected between blood draw number, glucose, and hematocrit, while osmolality was only affected by fishing site. These results suggest juvenile nurse sharks may exhibit a greater physiological stress response when exposed to recreational angling than adults captured with other fishing methods.

News organizations and journalists are important and influential actors in environmental politics. Their reporting on social and environmental issues often follows issue-attention cycles (IACs) that emphasize drama and problematization to maintain public interest. This study examined nearly 13 years of news coverage to understand the media discourse about the Critically Endangered North Atlantic right whale (NARW) and its conservation. Content analysis and critical discourse analysis were used to analyze 356 texts published in six large US newspapers between January 1, 2010 and March 15, 2023. NARW conservation and management received increased public attention and an IAC began in 2017 after an Unusual Mortality Event began, with 75 percent of the sampled articles (n = 267) published from 2017 on. The Boston Globe published a majority of the sampled texts (n = 209) and Globe reporter David Abel was the most prolific journalist with 50 bylines. The coverage featured six themes representing threats to the species, science and technological development, and tourism, local lifestyle, and culture. The most common topic was that of American lobster fishing gear and whale entanglements (n = 162, 45.5%). In that discourse journalists emphasized the political ecology of NARW conservation, focusing on disagreements between whale experts and advocates and commercial lobster fishermen and their allies as they sought to influence decision making by the National Marine Fisheries Service. Journalists presented the issue through a conflict frame and each group used distinct discursive strategies in an attempt to shape the discourse and public opinion related to new or stricter regulations for the commercial lobster fishery designed to reduce the risk of entanglement for NARWs. Findings suggest that this IAC related to NARW science and conservation has already moved through at least three of five key stages and will inevitably lose public interest, which has important implications for future communication and advocacy related to NARW conservation. This case study demonstrates the continued importance of media to conservation – as public forums for discussion, essential parts of organizational strategies for change, and as an externality that can influence conservation outcomes. Support for communication research and practice are vital to successful conservation.

Understanding fisheries requires not only traditional modelling approaches but also the incorporation of local ecological knowledge (LEK) which can provide other types of essential contextualizing knowledge. Recreational anglers within the cobia fishery on the east coast of central and northern Florida target cobia by seeking out the manta rays cobia often follow and associate with, and casting at or near them. Results suggest this fishery poses a threat of entanglement, injury and disturbance to mantas in the region, especially associated with the practices and behaviours of inexperienced anglers. Expert angler responses in interviews described changes in manta and cobia habitat use and reductions in cobia abundance Experienced anglers pointed to social media as a key driver of the expansion of this fishery and as an explanation for their perception of the growing presence of novice anglers engaged in these practices. Respondents proposed best practices and potential management interventions and generally supported conservation action, including through willingness to engage with researchers and support management and enforcement measures related to the fishery.

“Red tide” is the popular name for a harmful algal bloom that occurs frequently in Florida waters and has significant impacts on the environment, the economy, and human and animal health. This paper addresses the limited understanding of public attitudes surrounding red tide and the potential for message framing to increase support for mitigation action. A sample of Florida residents (n = 498) was randomly shown a digital article framed around different red tide impacts (economic loss, human health risks, ecosystem damage, or harm to charismatic species) or a control article not framed around a specific red tide impact. Participants were then queried about their emotional responses, support for red tide mitigation policies, and intentions to change their behavior to mitigate impacts. Participants reported higher levels of negative emotions after viewing the harm to charismatic megafauna framing, indicating that messaging may play a significant role in eliciting environmental emotions. Message frames did not significantly impact other policy attitudes. Results demonstrate barriers to shifting support for mitigation where public support for action is already high.

Media analysis has been applied to the complex challenges of development and urban sprawl, but to date no study examines how coastal development is understood in relation to critical marine and estuarine ecosystems. As anthropogenic pressures increasingly reshape coastal ecosystems, efforts to understand how problems and solutions are framed in public discourse are timely and valuable. We present a case study of media coverage and framing of development and the environment in Florida, USA, where coastal development and attendant consequences have been emergent for decades (n = 645). Findings explore how drivers of environmental change and the effects of environmental changes are discussed, what potential solutions are considered, and how actors and trade-offs are characterized. We identify two parallel but discrete narratives: one offering disjointed episodic coverage of particular development projects, and one providing larger-scale contextualized discussion of development and the environment more broadly. We discuss the implications for policy and collective action of the disconnect between these two narratives.

Public values and attitudes are increasingly relevant to wildlife conservation and management. For species historically perceived negatively, including sharks and predators, conservation action may be partially reliant on changing perceptions. We present the results of a large-scale, in-depth survey of public attitudes towards sharks and their conservation in the United States (n = 640). The survey covered a wide range of attitudes, beliefs, and practices, including where respondents encounter information about sharks, their perceptions of current conservation threats and attack risk, their interest in and self-reported knowledge about sharks, what value they attribute to sharks, what policy approaches to shark conservation they most support, and their attitudes regarding the personal relevance of and their relative responsibility for shark conservation. Results deepen our understanding of cultural trends around wildlife, demonstrating the potential influence of value shifts on other, more specific attitudes. Findings highlight a need for a conservation focus in media and messaging, as public perceptions, including potential biases or misperceptions, track closely with aggregate media coverage, and exposure to media coverage of shark bites is associated with beliefs that these events are common. Finally, we found a tendency to assign blame for shark declines to "others" outside of the United States, particularly commercial fishers in Asia, and little sense of personal responsibility or efficacy related to shark conservation. These findings have implications for conservation messaging for diverse wildlife values, specifically around self-efficacy and personal responsibility.

The ocean provides a critical foundation for human health, not only through material goods and services (often referred to as "ecosystem services") but also through less easily defined and quantifiable means. Our oceans underpin an incredible diversity of cultures, values, and practices, which themselves are the foundation for a wealth of human connections and well-being. In this chapter, we explore the connections between ocean cultures, human well-being, and management practices. We examine how historical and anthropological perspectives can reveal these connections and highlight future risks. Finally, we explore how coastal culture can both be a source of resilience and expose populations to new and emerging risks. Throughout, case studies highlight how these ideas are being applied by researchers around the globe.

The existence of trade-offs between continued tourism growth and environmental protection are apparent in Florida, where tourism-dependent economies are reliant on natural resources as key attractions. We analyze Florida newspaper articles covering tourism to determine how tourism issues are framed in public discourse, including discussion of tourism's drivers, effects and outcomes. We examine how complex trade-offs are (or are not) acknowledged. The overarching discourse frame describes a tourism-based economy reliant on environmental quality, which is threatened by other industries. Tourism is presented as providing economic incentives for environmental protection, with minimal discussion of tourism's potential environmental costs. Results reveal a simplistic discourse failing to acknowledge management challenges facing the state or meaningfully assess tourism's role in environmental protection or degradation.

Environmental media discourse analysis allows researchers to explore thematic patterns in media coverage of environmental issues through qualitative observations and quantitative coding. In this paper, we review newspaper media coverage in Florida pertaining to the connections between agriculture, other non-point pollution sources, and downstream ecosystem health. We analyzed 930 articles from 2007 through 2019 to determine common patterns in how these issues are covered by Florida media, including patterns in the causes of environmental problems, potential solutions, and stakeholders mentioned. Findings suggest that water quality problems are often framed as unpredictable or episodic rather than chronic, and as requiring (and only potentially being remediated by) state-level centralized technological or infrastructural solutions. Stakeholder relationships are framed as adversarial, with environmentalists and the agricultural sector as opponents. This case study highlights key power dynamics, barriers, and opportunities for better managing and communicating about agricultural land use practices and associated downstream environmental impacts.

We build on environmental attitude research to provide a foundation for considering policies making economic and environmental trade-offs. We conducted a large online survey of Florida public attitudes (n = 829), a state grappling with trade-offs between economic development and environmental quality. Findings provide the first baseline understanding of Floridian perceptions of relationships between key economic drivers and the environment. Environmental problems were generally considered important and pro-environmental policy options are highly supported. The environment was considered more important to Florida’s culture and future than key industries, with only tourism considered more important to the economy. Development was considered least important. Individual differences, including gender, political party, and industry affiliation, predicted policy support and attitudes toward trade-offs. Modeled together, attitudes toward government involvement and the importance of the environment to Florida predicted additional variance in policy support. Results highlight the intersection of social identities and ideological attitudes in shaping environmental policy attitudes.

Digital media, particularly websites, have become a critical component of wildlife tourism experiences, especially during the pretour information-seeking stage. With a focus on whale watching, this study used a grounded theory approach to identify, categorize, and investigate the common themes, text, and images used on 178 whale-watching operator websites across six geographic regions in the US. The results of a content analysis suggest that operators who are predominantly small business owners focus their marketing strategies on elements of their tour offerings and operator characteristics to distinguish themselves from competitors rather than emphasizing the whales themselves, conservation actions, or educational opportunities, catering to a segment of entertainment-oriented rather than sustainability-oriented guests. Ecolabel-certified operators in the sample mentioned conservation and educational topics more, though the information provided could still use improvement. We discuss implications and opportunities for the continued study of media related to whale watching and other marine wildlife tourism activities.

Understanding public perceptions, values, and preferences can be fundamental to effective conservation governance, management, and outreach. This is particularly true in socially and ecologically complex marine and coastal spaces, where many relevant questions remain. The social-ecological system of Biscayne Bay and Miami-Dade are on the frontier of problems that will soon engulf many coastal-urban systems. Despite the economic, ecological, and cultural importance of Biscayne Bay, research into the social components of this social-ecological system is distinctly lacking. In order to effectively address urgent coastal management issues, practitioners and policy-makers need a clear understanding of public perceptions, values, and priorities. In this paper I present the results of a large online survey (n = 1146) exploring public attitudes toward Biscayne Bay as a case study of management and opportunity in a complex coastal social-ecological system. Results describe a public that interacts with and utilizes Biscayne Bay in a variety of ways, from leisure and recreation, to subsistence. This public believes the Bay to be moderately healthy, though somewhat in decline, and has experienced a range of local environmental threats, about which they feel considerable concern. These interactions and concerns are in turn reflected in overwhelming endorsement of value statements regarding the ecological, material, cultural and economic importance of the ecosystem to the city, as well as high levels of support for policy actions to protect and restore that ecosystem. Together these findings indicate that additional policy steps to preserve and restore Biscayne Bay would enjoy support from the local public and demonstrate the power of public perceptions research to identify gaps and opportunities for management and outreach.

Monitoring population size and dynamics of threatened or low-density species is often both logistically difficult and costly. Recently, social media has emerged as a new tool for species monitoring. In this study, we expand on the use of social media posts as a tool to monitor the spatial and temporal distribution and public perceptions toward the smalltooth sawfish Pristis pectinata. We recorded 442 encounters with smalltooth sawfish from 2018 to 2021 in the form of Instagram posts. We identified locations of encounters within the following regions: Florida Keys, Everglades, South Florida (Miami/Fort Lauderdale), Caloosahatchee River, Bahamas, Upper Charlotte Harbor, Port St. Lucie, Ten Thousand Islands, Tampa, Naples, and Cape Canaveral. We found the greatest number of encounters occurred in the Florida Keys. In addition to spatiotemporal analysis, we used the captions of the posts to assess public attitudes and behaviors toward this charismatic species. This revealed individuals who encounter sawfish feel in general positive about their experience (over half described their encounter using positive language). We also found that sawfish were frequently caught as bycatch when other species (e.g., shark, tarpon, bonefish) were being targeted. Notably, in 12.6% of cases where sawfish were caught, they were being directly targeted. We also identified specific problematic or illegal handling behaviors from image and caption analysis. In addition to captured sawfish, we found sawfish are also frequently observed by beachgoers, boaters, and divers— however, in many cases these encounters may not be reported.

Recreational shark fisheries have been the subject of recent public attention because of the possible impacts on shark populations and conflicts between stakeholders. A case study is presented based on discussions that took place in summer 2018 about potential changes to policies regulating recreational land-based shark fishing in Florida. Comments from public meetings and workshops (totalling 15.8 hours) and online comments (1,050) submitted to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) were analysed using the lens of actor-network theory. The case study explores the intersection of conflicting stakeholder interests and types of knowledge, including how stakeholders variously defined the problem of user conflict in a coastal public space, and how they aligned themselves in relation to the problem and to each other. It further illustrates how shifting values and norms can intersect with changing technologies and environmental realities to produce new or increasing conflicts between natural resource user groups. This study underlines the importance and potential benefits of regulatory agencies explicitly and transparently engaging with value trade-offs when managing conflicts among users of natural resources.

An online survey of the American public (n = 500) was used to explore perceptions of the effects of tourism on wildlife and definitions of key tourism terms. Results show that the public's assessment of the impacts of tourism are relatively nuanced and reflective of trade-offs discussed in the literature, and that there is broad recognition of the potential for wildlife to experience both harms and benefits resulting from tourism. We also collected data about how the American public defines key terms associated with wildlife tourism, including ecotourism, sustainable tourism, and nature tourism. Findings indicate that definitions of these terms are not well understood by the public, and that the specific criteria which typically define ecotourism in the academic literature are not widely known or recognized. This suggests there may be inherent limitations to the use of ecotourism terminology in driving responsible consumer behavior and positive conservation outcomes.

Abstract Great hammerheads (Sphyrna mokarran) have undergone significant global population declines and were assessed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN in 2019. Identification and protection of critical habitat, particularly during early life stages, is considered imperative for species conservation and management. We report the first identification of a probable nursery area for young‐of‐the‐year and juvenile great hammerheads off the Atlantic coast of the United States. Notably, these animals were all encountered within highly human‐impacted marine habitats near Miami, Florida. The capture of nine individuals under 200 cm total length in a 10‐month period supports the hypothesis that this area represents a primary or secondary nursery habitat for great hammerheads.

Abstract - Stable isotope analysis is an increasingly utilized method for understanding resource usage and partitioning in marine species, including elasmobranch fishes. While the diet of elasmobranchs in Winyah Bay, SC, has been the subject of some preliminary research, diet and trophic relationships in this ecosystem are not yet well understood. This study addresses these knowledge gaps using δ13C and δ15N stable isotope analysis to increase understanding of isotopic niche breadth and overlap among 128 individuals representing 11 sympatric elasmobranch species present in Winyah Bay during the summer months. Overall, our findings support an understanding of Winyah Bay's elasmobranch community as trophically diverse, with some significant isotopic niche overlap among considered species, suggesting the possibility of competition for resources between co-occurring small elasmobranchs. These results suggest elasmobranch predators in the Winyah Bay ecosystem have complex and varied predator–prey relationships.

South Florida has a significant number of recreational anglers, and some shore-based fishing sites overlap with habitat for juvenile manta rays. Although manta rays are prohibited from harvest in Florida, they are frequently seen foul-hooked or entangled in fishing line. Recreational anglers (n = 198) were surveyed at piers and inlet jetties in Palm Beach County, Florida, USA to assess their knowledge of and actions and attitudes towards manta rays. Analysis of the responses revealed that while most anglers could identify a manta ray (66.7%) and expressed no interest in casting at (93.4%) or catching a manta ray (95.5%), they lacked knowledge about threats to mantas, as well as their conservation and protected status. Surveyed anglers overwhelmingly supported manta ray conservation (82.3%) and environmental protection (98.0%). Results indicate pier and inlet anglers are not using tackle strong enough to land a large ray to remove fishing gear, therefore it is recommended that outreach focuses on preventing recreational fishery interactions with manta rays, encouraging use of environmentally friendly tackle, and fostering engagement with anglers as citizen scientists. These results can inform the design of outreach materials aimed at closing knowledge gaps and encouraging best practices. Positive attitudes towards the environment and existing neutral behaviours towards manta rays indicate an opportunity to shift the behaviour of shore-based anglers in this area in support of manta ray conservation.

Research into public perceptions of wildlife conservation and management can identify misunderstanding or bias and provide data needed to effectively target outreach with the goal of improving policy outcomes. This study identifies gaps and bias in media coverage of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), an international agreement regulating trade in flora and fauna that attracts a significant amount of public attention, and that has in recent years increasingly incorporated protections for commercially exploited marine species. To examine one contributor to public understanding of processes and outcomes for marine species conservation at CITES, we performed a media content and discourse analysis for popular press articles from English-speaking newspapers worldwide (N = 102). Our analysis focused on how, and how often, marine species issues are discussed in the media, which experts are interviewed, which perspectives are highlighted, and whether important details and nuances known to experts are presented accurately (or at all). We show that proposals to list marine species on CITES appendices are discussed less often than proposals to list charismatic terrestrial species (e.g., elephants), and these proposals for trade controls on marine species are framed differently. Discussions centering on sharks and rays as a homogeneous group far exceed discussions of individual species, despite notably distinct risk profiles for different species. Extinction is rarely discussed and is poorly explained in the context of marine species. The contribution of marine species exploitation to local and global food security issues and fisher livelihoods is not discussed at all. Advocates from environmental non-profit groups dominate the list of interviewed experts, with alternative perspectives from groups linked to sustainable management like UNFAO (the United Nations agency with a fisheries mandate) and academics, rarely mentioned. Additionally, the fishing industry’s perspective on issues surrounding the conservation of commercially exploited marine species is rarely represented. Recommendations for both follow-up research and practical steps to ensure a more balanced inclusion of the perspectives of key stakeholders are included.

Direct potable water recycling (DPR) is increasingly recognized as an important strategy in the face of water shortage. DPR often is challenged by a lack of public support and in some cases has been overturned by public opposition alone. Severe drought in Texas in recent years has resulted in several cities in that state considering and passing DPR policies for the first time in the United States. We present three case studies-two from cities that passed and implemented DPR policies and one that considered and ultimately tabled a DPR plan. We use multiple data sources including public surveys and policy maker interviews, newspaper articles, and city meeting minutes to examine the discourse on these policies in public, media, and political spheres. Importantly, we explore the connection between regulatory, structural, environmental, political, and communication factors in each case as they intersect with public attitudes, including expressions of disgust and perceived risk which have featured in experimental research on perceptions of water recycling. By exploring these factors holistically, we are able to examine some of the ways these public attitudinal factors interact in real-world contexts with implications for future policy making and studies of local decision-making under uncertainty.