Abstract

This study measured the awareness, perception and attitude of residents in southwest Nigeria on the impact of coronavirus on illegal wildlife trade with an online survey method for data collection. One hundred and fifty responses were recorded out of over two hundred online copies of questionnaire sent out. The Cronbach’s alpha was above 0.70 for the questionnaire items for perception and conservation attitudes which is an indication of reliability. Results were presented descriptively using frequencies, percentages and tables while inferentially, chi square was used to test the relationship between socio-demographic characteristics, perception and conservation attitude. ANOVA was used to check for differences in the respondents’ willingness to support conservation among their socio-demographic characteristics. A higher percentage of the respondents were females (54.7%), though almost equal with males (45.3%). The highest percentage of the respondents were within youthful age of 21-30 years (80.7%) with tertiary education level (99.3%). Furthermore, majority of the respondents were students (37.3%) and with income below ₦50,000 (61.3%). Although, majority of the respondents disagreed with the fact that Covid-19 was contracted from wildlife, they perceived that the pandemic has reduced human impact on wild animals’ habitat and they are willing to support conservation by reporting anyone involved in illegal hunting and trade in wildlife. Strict laws to reduce illegal wildlife trade and wild animals-human contact should be enforced as this will reduce the transmission of zoonotic diseases.

Key Words: Coronavirus, Wildlife, Illegal trade, Conservation