Understanding Predation - Launch of the Questionnaire

Understanding Predation

Workshop Questionnaire

Gill Ainsworth explains the importance of the questionnaire and how it will be used to gather information from a diverse range of people, and from everyone who will be attending the workshops. However, anyone is welcome to  use the questionnaire to feed information and views to the project.

In my previous post, I mentioned that the social science strand of the Understanding Predation project would include two methods of collecting stakeholder knowledge about impacts on ground nesting wild bird species: an online questionnaire and a series of workshops.

Well, the online questionnaire is now open and we invite you to have your say!

About the Questionnaire

As well as being distributed directly to Moorland Forum member organisations, the questionnaire is open to the public via this blog.

The questionnaire is designed to collect information that will complement a review of published natural science literature also being carried out as part of the project. The results will help us develop a better understanding of the diversity of knowledge and experiences that exist regarding ground nesting wild bird species in upland and lowland systems in Scotland.

The questionnaire will take around 30 minutes to complete and asks about people’s experiences and opinions of the following broad topics:

• Interest and experience of issues relating to six species of ground nesting wild birds (Black Grouse, Curlew, Golden plover, Grey Partridge, Lapwing, Oystercatcher);
• How environmental and human factors may positively or negatively impact on these wild bird species;
• How predator species may positively or negatively impact on these wild bird species; 
• Different techniques for managing predator-prey interactions; 
• Types of facts or proof used to make assessments about impacts; and
• Preferred forms of knowledge. 

Get Involved

You can access the questionnaire by clicking on this link.

A pdf version of the questionnaire can be found the Project's webpage, in case you want to preview it before completing it online.

Please also tell your colleagues (e.g. staff, members, volunteers) about this questionnaire so we can include as many diverse views as possible in the research.

Timing

Please complete the questionnaire online as soon as possible.

Provide Literature, Facts and Proof

We encourage you to include any references, facts or proof to support your questionnaire responses (e.g. documents, observations, photos). You can describe these in the questionnaire itself and e-mail or post them to me at the address below.

Also, if you have any unpublished documents (e.g. reports) that you think ought to be included in the natural science review, but that may not be widely available, please e-mail or post items to the address below with a brief description of their relevance. We will write another post shortly about the kinds of documents we’re looking for.

Attend workshops

This project will also explore the issues discussed in the questionnaire in greater depth during stakeholder workshops, conducted between April and July 2015. Participants at these workshops must complete this questionnaire first, and I will write another blog post soon with more details about the workshops.

In the meantime, if you have any questions or would like to take part in this research, you can contact me by using the comment form below, or to keep the message private, by using this contact form.

Correspondence address:

Gill Ainsworth

Research Fellow in Understanding Predation

Institute of Biological & Environmental Sciences

Aberdeen University

Tillydrone Avenue

Aberdeen

AB24 2TZ