{"id":29082,"date":"2024-02-20T10:53:35","date_gmt":"2024-02-20T17:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/poll-gauges-voters-views-on-western-conservation-issues\/"},"modified":"2024-02-20T17:53:35","modified_gmt":"2024-02-20T17:53:35","slug":"poll-gauges-voters-views-on-western-conservation-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/poll-gauges-voters-views-on-western-conservation-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Poll gauges voters’ views on western conservation issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mule
Mule deer and other foragers are more susceptible to disease when their food is limited and less nutritious, one of the many effects of climate change, Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologist Brad Weinmeister said. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Over two-thirds of voters in Mountain West states say they are worried about land, water and wildlife in the region, according to a recent poll.<\/p>\n

The Conservation in the West Poll, by the State of the Rockies Projects at Colorado College, found 67% of voters expressed worry about \u201cabout the future of nature, meaning our land, water, air and wildlife\u201d as opposed to hopeful.<\/p>\n

The poll marks the 14th time the project has surveyed voters in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. It was conducted from Jan. 4-21 and involved at least 400 registered voters in each of the eight states for a total 3,376 voters.<\/p>\n

Among those worried about the future of nature in the west includes 72% in Arizona, 68% in Colorado, 63% in Idaho, 67% in Montana, 63% in Nevada, 64% in New Mexico, 65% in Utah, and 58% in Wyoming.<\/p>\n

While 96% of Democrats surveyed deem water, air, wildlife, and public land issues important, so do 87% of Independents, and 74% of Republicans, according to the survey.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere may be a lot that divides voters across the country, but in the West, there is nearly universal consensus in favor of conservation,\u201d Katrina Miller-Stevens, the project\u2019s director and an associate professor at Colorado College, said in a statement. \u201cNot only do voters prefer conservation when asked how public lands and water should be utilized, but issues involving water, air, land and wildlife are top of mind when they make their voting decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The survey also marks the first time in the poll that Republicans and Independents favor \u201cprioritizing conservation over maximizing energy production,\u201d the project said in a news release.<\/p>\n

Among all voters, 70% said they prefer their representatives focus more on ensuring protection of resources and public lands, while 26% said they would rather they pursue more domestic energy production on public lands.<\/p>\n

The Center Square <\/a>was launched in May 2019 to fulfill the need for high-quality statehouse and statewide news across the United States. The Center Square is a project of the 501(c)(3) Franklin News Foundation, headquartered in Chicago.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mexico, 64% were worried about the future of nature<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1030,28,138],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-29082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-environment","tag-headlines","tag-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29082"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=29082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}