Wildlife value orientations based on age, gender and education in Malaysia

Wild Life value orientation is an important cognition to predict the behavior of individuals in wildlife management in conservation decisions. This article analyzed Malaysian value orientations toward wildlife and examined differences in value orientations among three demographic characteristics: gender, education, residency situation. In addition, it has tested the reliability and validity of a scale that can be used in on-site surveys for measuring wildlife value orientations in wildlife management. The two wildlife value orientations: domination and mutualism were based on the previous research and theorizing in other countries. Data were acquired from a self administer survey (n=1337) sent to randomly selected individuals in the Malaysian population. The questionnaire was based on seven wildlife constructs based 27 items used to measure their wildlife value orientations. The results were not according to the prior researches in other developed and developing countries; perhaps, because of basic differences in their society comparing to Malaysia. To sum up, rural people in Malaysia were more utilitarian than urban. In addition, Men were more mutualism than women. The people with average education in Malaysia similar to the developing country showed more mutualism than low education while they were more mutualism than higher education as well