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Home | Economics of Wildlife Damage Management Economics of Wildlife Damage ManagementEconomics of wildlife damage management (WDM) concerns the monetary impact of interactions between humans and wildlife. Wildlife damage often affects assets (cattle, forests, cropland, buildings) privately held by individuals (e.g., various farmers, ranchers, suburban homeowners). The animals causing the damage, on the other hand, are wildlife species and wildlife is publicly owned (Clark 2002). Determining who should pay for wildlife damage management, and how much the wildlife resource should be "managed" to reduce damage, are contentious issues. Because wildlife damage management is often controversial, it is important that it gain validity in practice and policy formulation considerations by having practitioners accurately assess damage. These assessments must be a core part of all studies and evaluations and can be employed to justify management strategies and evaluate the effectiveness of management practices (Clark 2002). The public, advocacy groups (such as various animal rights groups), stakeholders and private individuals have begun looking at the amount of money going into WDM projects, demanding accountability, and questioning whether actions are cost effective. For example, if management practices are incorporated at an airport to lessen the chances of bird strikes with aircraft, are there fewer bird strikes occurring? If not, why have the management actions been implemented? If a rancher is yearly losing livestock worth $100,000 to coyote predation, will it be cost-effective for him or her to pay for help to control the coyote problem? Economics is a tool that can be used to answer the above questions. Determining Economic Value of Crops, Livestock and Other Items *Most of this discussion, except where otherwise noted, comes from an interview with Dr. Stephanie A. Shwiff,economist, National Wildlife Research Center. |
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Content: Laurie Paulik Last updated:
02/05/08 |
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