All carnivores are not equal in the rural people's view. Should we develop conservation plans for functional guilds or individual species in the face of conflicts?

We tested differences in attitudes towards bears, wolves and lynx among the rural public in Albania and Macedonia through information collected from a questionnaire survey (n = 759). Wolves were the species with the least positive attitudes among the rural public and had the lowest support for conservation compared with bears and lynx. In addition, conflict perception of wolves was higher than for bears and lynx. We argue that, based on species specific differences in public attitudes, conservation initiatives and management plans for large carnivores should deal with wolves separately from bears and lynx, as lower public support for wolves might jeopardise the conservation of the two other large carnivores. Bears and lynx can be potentially treated together in conservation initiatives based on the similar levels of public support for conservation, however, from a conflict-management point of view, all three species need to be addressed separately.