| Summary: | With urbanization and the recovery of wild populations, human-wildlife interactions are increasing and are in many instances resulting in conflict (Dickman, 2010, Herda-Rapp and Goedeke, 2005, Madden, 2004, Messmer, 2000). In coastal communities, human populations are steadily increasing, and the coastline is changing. These changes are causing interactions between wildlife and humans to increase and conflict from these interactions to become more common. This thesis explores growing human-wildlife conflict in coastal locations through an examination of conflict over seal use of beaches in two locations: La Jolla, California and Oahu, Hawaii. In La Jolla, 25 years of conflict surrounds the use of the Children’s Pool Beach (CPB) by Pacific harbor seals (Phoca vitulina). To better understand and characterize the perceptions and values driving conflict, we draw on three existing frameworks: 1) the Levels of Conflict model (Madden and McQuinn, 2014), also used by Draheim et. al. (2015), 2) the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) scale (Dunlap, 2008), and 3) value orientations adapted by Stern et al. (1995) from Schwartz’s (1994) Value Theory. Using these frameworks and a mixed method approach we conducted surveys with beach- goers and semi-structured interviews with both key stakeholders and coastal managers in both study sites we aimed to understand: What factors (values, demographic, etc.) are associated with negative and positive perceptions of seals? What are the stated and underlying drivers of conflict in La Jolla and how can these inform the potential drivers of conflict in Oahu? And how do stakeholder perceptions of seals relate to broader environmental beliefs and values? The long standing and controversial conflict at CPB illustrated that differences in values can drive and perpetuate conflict when paired with management inaction and the politicization of the conflict. Although some similarities in threats to identity and access are similar between Oahu and La Jolla, differences in species characteristics and ...
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