ORIGINAL ARTICLE The attitude of society to the return of the wolf in South Tyrol (Italy) Julia Stauder 1 & Filippo Favilli 1 & Agnieszka Elzbieta Stawinoga 2 & Andrea Omizzolo 1 & Thomas Philipp Streifeneder 1 Received: 16 October 2019 /Revised: 23 February 2020 /Accepted: 6 March 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract This article provides a first investigation on the attitude of South Tyrolean residents (northern Italy) toward the return of the wolf in their province. Data were collected through an online questionnaire, which was available for 54,527 residents (≥ 18 years old) of South Tyrol with internet access and a Facebook® account and was shared on the institute’ s homepage. In total, 1818 valid responses were collected in 2 months in 2018. Cluster analysis evidenced four homogenous groups of respondents characterized by the components of attitude, their district community, the wolf distribution in their area, belief factors, and the personal fear of wolves. The data analysis revealed differences and relations between the four clusters in the level of knowledge, experience with wolves, education level, and the expected impact on the tourist sector. The obtained results (1) evidence some key factors influencing the attitude of residents, (2) underline the importance of considering small spatial scale attitudinal differences, and (3) urge for an extended human dimension of wolf coexistence research to support local management strategies. Keywords Attitudes toward wolves . Italian alpine region . Small spatial scale . Cluster analysis . Wildlife management Introduction After being almost exterminated in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, wolves (Canis lupus L.) are increasing in number and distribution range in many areas of Europe, recolonizing part of their ancient territories. Due to this return, several societal con- flicts have raised, mainly due to depredation on livestock and to a diffuse sense of fear for personal safety, often particularly underlined by the press and by social medias, posing new chal- lenges for local administrators and wildlife managers (Naughton-Treves et al. 2003; Treves and Karanth 2003; Skogen et al. 2008, 2017). In this context, wildlife management approaches focusing only on biological aspects may not be adequate to consider the human-wolf relationship from a social point of view, in order to provide long-lasting concrete actions to mitigate the human-wolf conflict in all its extent. Thus, so- ciological approaches have to be included in wildlife manage- ment strategies in order to understand the attitude of local peo- ple toward wildlife species, especially the charismatic ones stimulating an emotional response, and find support for the implementation of conservation actions (Redpath et al. 2013). Therefore, the human dimension of wildlife management is gaining continuous greater attention, especially when the aim is to implement a positive coexistence between humans and the returning wolves (Treves and Karanth 2003; Madden 2004; Dickman 2010; Dorresteijn et al. 2014). The theoretical framework Literature defines attitude as a personal evaluation or feeling about a person, an object, or an action. Several authors usually divide attitude into two main components, a cognitive (i.e., beliefs about an object and its impact) and an affective (i.e., feeling toward an object) one (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975; Eagly and Chaiken 1993; Manfredo et al. 1995; Verplanken et al. 1998; Vaske and Manfredo 2001). Literature reveals that both these two compo- nents must be analyzed separately as cognition and affect can explain and cover for different elements influencing attitude (Verplanken et al. 1998; Decker et al. 2012; Glikman et al. 2012). Another fundamental concept in social science is norma- tive beliefs, described by Vaske and Whittaker (2004) as personal judgement or a construct in people’ s mind that examines the ac- ceptability of an action (for example, what an authority should do in a certain situation), which can have an additional influence on * Julia Stauder julia.stauder@eurac.edu 1 Institute for Regional Development, Eurac Research, Bolzano, Italy 2 Eurac Research, Bolzano, Italy European Journal of Wildlife Research (2020) 66:40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-020-1372-5