8095

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 8095
• Author: National Research Council.
• Title: Impacts of Emerging Agricultural Trends on Fish and Wildlife Habitat.
• USFW Year: 1982.
• USFW - Doc Type: Washington, D.C.
• Copyright Material: NO

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derived from harvesting the wildlife (Davis 1963). Also, for many
species harvested for sport a commercial market may not exist.
The cost approach proposes that the value of a wildlife resource
is equal to the cost of developing and maintaining it. The technique
does not enable us to identify added gains or losses from wildlife
resource development or destruction, and it can be a good example of
circular reasoning (Brown et ale 1973).
One of the three methods approved by the Water Resources Council
for valuing wildlife use, the unit day approach, uses expert or
informed opinion and judgment to estimate the value of a unit day of
activity. These values are typically based on the commercial value
associated with different activities related to wildlife resources.
The chief problems of this approach are (1) uniform values are not
appropriate for both commercial and public wildlife resource use: (2)
the values assigned are arbitrarily chosen: and (3) even though
subject to adjustment, the values frequently do not adequately reflect
variations in quality in the recreation experience.
The previous methods all fail to arrive at an estimate of
wildlife resource value that satisfactorily covers most, if not all,
of the appropriate values and offers an assessment of the added costs
and benefits of different wildlife resource decisions. Some measure
is needed of the maximum amount consumers would be willing to pay to
continue an activity or to create a new one. The goal is to measure
the total willingness to pay of consumers for a given level and
quality of wildlife resources (or, in economic terms, the area under
the demand curve). Two techniques are available to provide this
estimate--the travel cost method and the interview or contingent
valuation method.
The objective of the travel-cost method is to estimate a demand
curve for wildlife resources by analyzing variations in the number of
visits to a wildlife area and by measuring the associated variation in
travel costs. This method proposes that the cost of travel to a
wildlife resource area for a visitor from a distance is equal to the
value that the local user receives but does not need to pay for in
travel expenses. A basic problem with this method is its assumption
that the sole cost of traveling is in money when, in fact, other costs
such as time and the inconvenience are also relevant (Davis 1963).
The interview or survey method estimates the value of wildlife
resource use with the aid of interviews or questionnaires that ask how
much a person would be willing to pay to use a certain wildlife
resource. A model is then developed to predict willingness to pay for
a given wildlife resource. The quality of the wildlife-related
experience in an area is positively related to the willingness to pay
for the opportunity to visit that area. The major problem with this
technique is that the individual's responses to the interview or
survey questions may reflect significant biases (Schulze et ale
1981).
Several studies have laid the foundation for wildlife resource
valuation by willingness-to-pay techniques. Hammack and Brown (1974)
looked at the value of waterfowl hunting as a function of the number
of waterfowl shot and bagged during the season, along with other