Vibrant Quality of Life and Orca Recovery: An analysis of Vital Signs within public comments on orca recovery

Prepared for the Puget Sound Partnership by Drs. Stacia Dreyer and Kelly Biedenweg April 2020

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Table of Contents

Background ................................................................................................................................ 1

Methods ...................................................................................................................................... 1

Results ........................................................................................................................................ 3

Conclusions ................................................................................................................................ 6

References .................................................................................................................................. 6

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Background The Puget Sound Partnership has identified indicators, or “Vital Signs,” to assist in gauging ecosystem health and to develop recovery goals that include both biophysical and social components. Five of the Puget Sound Vital Signs are connected to the goal of vibrant quality of life: (a) sound stewardship, (b) sense of place, (c) good governance, (d) economic vitality, and (e) cultural practices. However, qualitative analyses of the relationship between these (or any) Vital Signs and public perceptions regarding ecosystem recovery have not been systematically conducted. Orcas (Orcinus orca) are an iconic species in the state of Washington, where the Southern Resident distinct population segment has experienced steady population decline over the last three decades. Because the health and well-being of orcas in the Salish Sea is an indicator of food web stability, it is also connected to the wellbeing of the larger community. In 2018, Washington Governor Jay Inslee established a task force to develop a recovery plan and received more than 17,000 public comments in the form of directed survey responses, general comments submitted through the governor’s website, and letters and emails to the task force. These public comments provided a way for us to better understand how these Vital Signs are represented by the public. In this report we focus on the latter two datasets: unique comments submitted through the governor’s website (N= 3,650) and letters/emails (N = 59). We qualitatively coded a random, representative sample (n = 350) to identify those responses that addressed the Vital Signs connected to the goal of vibrant quality of life. This analysis reveals the connection between previously identified quality of life indicators and public perceptions of orca conservation in the Puget Sound, information that could influence the framing of and strategies for conservation planning.

Methods Data collection. Source files were accessed by the Oregon State University Human Dimensions Lab through a publicly available link, which connected to multiple file folders in Box, an online cloud storage service. The Box folder was managed by the Puget Sound Partnership. These folders contained a range of formats, including spreadsheets, word processing documents, PDFs and various image files. These were sorted by source: (a) survey responses that specifically addressed Task Force Recommendations; (b) general comments submitted through the governor’s website; (c) letters and emails to agency staff and task force members; and (d) comments collected through environmental advocacy organizations. The Human Dimensions lab at OSU extracted text from each source file and compiled into four separate Excel (Microsoft,

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2018) workbooks, per the above categories. These four workbooks are distinct datasets now curated and managed by the Human Dimensions Lab and are available by request. The resulting four datasets included a unique case number, source file reference, date, comment, and (where provided) name, organization, and contact information. Responses with complete or near duplication were removed prior to analysis. Personal information was excluded from analyses. For this study, we used two of the four datasets: general comments submitted through the governor’s website and letters and email to agency staff and task force members. These two datasets were chosen because they were best suited to answer our research question, “to what extent do public responses to orca conservation efforts invoke the Vital Signs associated with quality of life: Economic Vitality, Good Governance, Sound Stewardship, Sense of Place, and Cultural Practices?” Governor’s website comments (N= 3,650). During the period from July 2018 through May 2019 the governor’s website (www.governor.wa.gov) provided a form for the public to submit general comments to the following prompt: “The task force is currently preparing a set of recommendations for Southern Resident killer whale recovery. A draft report will be sent out for public comment in October 2018. If you have any comments you’d like to share at this time, please do so here.” Respondents were also able to provide attachments; however, these attachments were not included in this analysis. Letters and emails (N=59). During the period from July through November of 2018, 59 letters and emails were forwarded or directly submitted to the Governor’s office and various task force members. Codebook creation. We designed a codebook to guide our coding process. Codes were defined in advance from the Puget Sound Vital Signs Quality of Life indicators and further refined in their meaning from data during coding (Bernard, 2017). We pulled definitions for the Vital Signs from Puget Sound Partnership’s website as well as published literature. To be coded as a Vital Sign, the respondent did not have to specifically name the Vital Sign, rather mention ideas relevant to that Vital Sign’s definition. Following Bernard (2017), the codebook had the following sections: Mnemonic, inclusion criteria, exclusion criteria, typical exemplar, close but no, long description, short description. Additionally, we added the definition of the Vital Sign. The codebook was designed in an iterative fashion, and modifications to the codebook were made after each round of applying it to code the data. Positive and Negative Coding. While testing our manual coding, it became apparent that there was both a positive side and a negative side to people’s invocation of the Vital Signs. To account for this, we used a hierarchical coding scheme. This allowed us to code for the presence of the Vital Sign and then also if it was referred to positively or negatively. For example, good governance has eight major characteristics. “It is participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable, and inclusive and follows the rule of law. It assures that corruption is minimized, accounts for the views of minorities and assures that the voices of the most vulnerable in society are heard in decision

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making. It is also responsive to the present and future needs of society” (United Nations, as reported by PSP, 2019). So, if a commenter remarked on those aspects in relation to orca recovery, (including governance actions related to salmon recovery, dam removal, etc.) it would be coded as Good Governance - positive. But, if instead, they commented about how action was lacking or if they identified competing governance interests, it would be coded as Good Governance - negative. Similarly, sense of place for our research purposes centered around the idea that the presence of healthy orca populations in the area contributes to peoples’ connection to the landscape of the Puget Sound. If an individual was commenting on how the loss of the species impacted their connection to the land or Puget Sound, it would be coded as Sense of Place- negative. In summary, the combined positive and negative responses to each Vital Sign code represent the frequency with which respondents evoked that Vital Sign in their commentary toward orca conservation1. The further designation into positive and negative sentiment gives another layer of nuance to understand in which direction the current situation is affecting their assessment of that Vital Sign related to orca conservation. Manual coding. Using unique comments submitted through the governor’s website (N= 3,650) and letters/emails (N = 59), one researcher qualitatively coded a random, representative sample (n = 350) to identify those responses that addressed the Vital Signs connected to the goal of vibrant quality of life. We chose this sample size based on a population size of 3,650 comments with a 95% confidence level and a confidence interval of 5 and by using a sample calculator (See: https://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm). A total of 348 comments were needed to be representative, and we rounded up to 350.

Results Overall, we found that the majority of comments (84%) did not remark on aspects of the Vital Signs related to a vibrant quality of life (Figure 1).

1 Here, we are referring to the frequency of occurrence that accounts for our hierarchical coding, unique hits per comment, and the non-mutual exclusivity of our codes per each comment. Thus, if a comment had both a Good Governance - positive and a Good Governance – negative code applied, it would count as 1 main code occurrence for Good Governance, not 2, because of the code hierarchy.

16%

84%

Presence of Quality of Life Vital Sign Codes

Present Absent

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Figure 1. Presence or Absence of Vital Sign Codes Of the 16% of the comments that did make some sort of reference related to quality of life, the most commonly occurring comment had to do with Good Governance (63% of the comments relevant to Vital Signs), as shown by Figure 2. The second most commonly occurring Vital Sign was Sense of Place (23%), followed by Cultural Practices (20%). As codes could co-occur with one another, for example a comment could reference both Good Governance and Sense of Place, these percentages do not equal 100%.

Figure 2. Distribution of Coding for the Five Vital Signs A theme we identified within our coding for Good Governance was around "action lacking." This theme was present in a majority (78%) of our Good Governance negatively coded comments and is exemplified by the following quote,

“It appears a great many government, science and industry folks are spending a lot of taxpayer-time (and likely resource $$$) talking and holding meetings in order to make plans to talk about holding another meeting to discuss a strategy for making a presentation, followed by another meeting to review the committee discussions to prepare a report that will be discussed a later meeting, and so on, and so on, and so on… From the way it looks online, Puget Sound will likely have witnessed the loss of the VERY LAST orca before the final meeting, report or presentation is eventually scheduled.”

We can infer that of the people submitting comments, they want to see action taken for orca conservation and believe that not enough has been done in the past. Another theme found within Good Governance - negative was that of “competing concerns.” This theme highlights different concerns users or user groups (sport fishers, tribal groups, whale watching industry, hatcheries, the President, regulators, scientists, etc.) have that might compete

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SoundStewardship

Sense ofPlace

GoodGovernance

EconomicVitality

CulturalWellbeing

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f Com

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Vital Sign Code

Distribution of Coding within Coded sample

Positive

Negative

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with one another given orca recovery, especially when some groups are perceived as having influence while others lack influence. Other findings. In this section, we highlight how fishing, a relevant topical area, connects Vital Signs. Cultural Practices – negative. References to this Vital Sign, in the negative framing, was often divisive, dismissive, and sometimes racist. References also mentioned aspects of fishing. For example, one commenter noted,

“Have the Tribes stop fishing for Salmon. If they really "care" about their fellow Orca brothers as some say they do, then its time for them to stop being so selfish and keeping most of the salmon for themselves.”

A different comment uses similar stereotyping,

“Why is it that no one wants to say anything about the real reason there is no fish left for the forces to eat?? The problem is no one regulates how the Indians net salmon. And they are wiping out all the runs by netting too many. They take all the fish and now there is none left.”

Fishing was also mentioned for Economic Vitality – negative,

“... as you consider restricting access for fishing opportunities, you jeopardize our company and other boat manufacturers. Washington state fishing boat manufacturers also produce Duckworth, Weldcraft, and NW Boats in Clarkston and Armstrong in Port Angeles. Wooldridge, Defiance, and Arima are a few other long-time boat brands manufactured in Washington. The continuing success and survival [of boat manufacturers], and the survival of the SRKWs both depend on a healthy Puget Sound salmon population. And, just as important for the entire fishing and tourism industry here in the state, is access to reasonable recreational salmon harvest. As fishing seasons go here in Washington, so goes our small business.

We also identified the following quote, where the individual references both of the above Vital Signs, Economic Vitality – negative and Cultural Practices – negative,

“If you continue to take away recreational fishing opportunities while supporting gill net fishing, and reducing or eliminating hatchery production of salmon and steelhead; to take away sport fishing opportunities in Puget Sound to provide salmon for killer whales...You will soon lose the 15% increase in sport fishing license fees plus the other 100% percent. As 70 Year fisherman in Washington why should I continue to support WDFW as you continue to TAKE AWAY my fishing opportunities. I wonder how many sport fisher men and women are thinking these same thoughts?”

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These quotes highlight different ways in which fishing is connected to Vital Signs and embedded within orca recovery efforts. This underscores the importance of human dimensions research for planning and implementation in conservation and recovery.

Conclusions The Quality of Life Vital Signs were found in low numbers within this dataset, only 16% of the comments referenced one of these Vital Signs. Good Governance was the most frequently occurring Vital Sign. Intuitively, this makes sense since people were specifically responding to a policy development process. This same type of analysis could explore public data related to non-policy events (e.g., simply the status of orcas, or the existence of riparian areas). This research reflects the opportunity to make use of a vast amount of publicly available qualitative data. This is an important first step at understanding how the Quality of Life Vital Signs are felt and expressed by the general public in response to regional restoration issues. It represents an example of creative and innovative research project in the emerging field of human dimensions of orca conservation that makes use of data- ex post facto. As the data were not collected for the purposes of this study, there are still many gaps in our understanding of the Vital Signs. Future research could be designed to specifically understand the connections between orca recovery and quality of life.

References Bernard, H. R., Wutich, A., & Ryan, G. W. (2016). Analyzing qualitative data: Systematic approaches. SAGE publications. Puget Sound Partnership. 2019. Puget Sound Info – Vital Signs – Good Governance. https://vitalsigns.pugetsoundinfo.wa.gov/VitalSign/Detail/23