Understanding attitudes and motivations: How addressing barriers in citizen science can inform urban biodiversity conservation

Sebastian Moreno and Paige S. Warren, Department of Environmental Conservation, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, Susannah B. Lerman and Brett Butler, Northern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Amherst, MA, Brian Evans, Robert Reitsma and Peter P. Marra, Migratory Bird Center, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Washington, DC

Background/Question/Methods
Citizen science programs have been growing in popularity as a means to understand the status of urban biodiversity and to overcome the challenges of gaining access to private land. These programs provide scientists an opportunity to engage the general public in various stages of the scientific process. Additionally, the citizen scientists can strengthen connections with nearby nature, increase environmental literacy, and cultivate their sense of place in their community. Citizen science programs are known to experience a decrease in participant effort throughout the years. Low participant effort might result in a decrease in data quality and a poor representation of what is truly impacting urban biodiversity. We conducted a survey on current Smithsonian Institution’s Neighborhood Nestwatch participants using the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to gauge the effort, attitudes, and motivations of participants in a citizen science program studying the population dynamics of backyard birds. Questions revolved around the participants’ likelihood of resighting color-banded birds, the likelihood of inputting data into the Neighborhood Nestwatch database, and who influenced their decisions to collect data.
Results/Conclusions
Our survey was administered in August 2020 to all current Neighborhood Nestwatch participants, and had a response rate of 53% (n= 212). 73% of Neighborhood Nestwatch participants became involved in citizen science because they wanted to contribute to bird conservation. However, when it comes to inputting data, 62% of participants strongly disagreed that scientists believed it was important that participants resight color-banded birds whereas 66% of participants agreed that their family believed it was important to resight color-banded birds. These data may provide insight into a potential disconnect in communication between scientists and participants. Most citizen science programs typically engage people with the social and financial capital, who tend to be older, white, affluent individuals. Only 17% of Neighborhood Nestwatch participants were under the age of 45 years and 39% were over the age of 65 years with 57% of the participants having a net household income over $100,000. Further, the findings suggest that there is a misconception around the importance of data to science, and the demographics suggest that the people involved in this project are wealthy and likely have leisure time. Lowering barriers, broadening participation, and ensuring participants are collecting data in citizen science programs will address environmental justice issues while providing a better understanding of the factors impacting urban bird populations.