Data from: Tradeoffs and win-wins between large landscape conservation and wildlife viewing in protected areas

We surveyed visitors to two United States protected areas to characterize the importance of wildlife viewing and test whether changes in the viewing experience justify support for visitor-funded conservation. This dataset comes from an intercept survey of visitors to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks administered for two months during Summer 2022. The survey asked about park visitation behavior, including number of trips to each park in the last three years, the importance of wildlife viewing, the animals visitors want to see, and demographics. The survey included a contingent behavior question about how changes in wide-ranging wildlife would affect park visitation. It also asked visitors to express their views on different modes of raising funds (e.g., a tax, a fee, a voluntary donation).

We sampled inside the national parks and in two heavily trafficked locations in gateway towns just outside the parks (Cody, Wyoming and Jackson, Wyoming), approaching every fourth group. We screened potential participants when sampling outside the parks by asking whether they were on a current trip to the parks, had visited the parks in the last 12 months, or planned to visit the parks in the next 12 months. We deliberately sampled across various locations, times of day and days of the week. To assess non-response bias, we asked individuals who declined if they would provide their zip code and number of trips to the parks in the last three years. We sampled until we reached 1000 responses.