No abstract

Access to lands for hunting is widely recognized as critical to sustaining and developing participation in hunting. Deer hunters comprise a substantial portion of recreational hunters in the United States, and numerous stakeholders benefit from the deer management services provided by hunters on public lands. We estimated the economic value of publicly accessible deer hunting land in Michigan using economic models of hunting destinations for hunters in the archery season and for hunters in the firearm season. We found that the amounts of state‐owned hunting land, federally owned hunting land, and publicly accessible, privately owned Commercial Forest Act land are significant (P < 0.001) and positive determinants of hunting destinations. The annual economic value of Michigan's publicly accessible hunting land to archery and firearm deer hunters, beyond hunter expenditures, was estimated to be over $80 million. Access to state‐owned land accounted for approximately $50 million in annual economic value to Michigan deer hunters. The average per‐acre value of publicly accessible hunting land is greatest in the Southern Lower Peninsula of Michigan, where public access is scarce and the majority of hunters reside. Understanding the economic values hunters derive from publicly accessible hunting lands will enable managers and policy makers to make better decisions when considering policy options that involve reducing or increasing public access. © 2011 The Wildlife Society.

The 2012 revision of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP) explicitly recognized the need to increase recruitment and retention of waterfowl hunters, birdwatchers, and other conservationists to maintain support for wetland conservation. The incorporation of human dimensions objectives within the NAWMP has compelled waterfowl and wetland managers to consider whether and to what extent landscape characteristics such as public land access; the type, amount, and location of wetlands; and site infrastructure will increase support for wetland conservation among user groups. Further, it has forced the waterfowl community to consider the possible trade‐offs between managing land to achieve biological versus social objectives. We used publicly available, long‐term data sets to illustrate a method of incorporating human dimensions into waterfowl habitat planning and management. We used United States Fish and Wildlife Service waterfowl harvest survey data, United States Geological Survey band encounter data, and Cornell Lab of Ornithology eBird data to summarize travel characteristics of wetland bird enthusiasts (i.e., waterfowl hunters and birdwatchers) in the Atlantic Flyway. Greater than 90% of all trips by wetland bird enthusiasts occurred within their state of residence. We used data from New York, USA, to demonstrate how to construct discrete choice recreation demand models to identify factors that influence site selection and participation. We demonstrate how model outputs, such as the expected change in the number and geographic distribution of recreational trips (i.e., hunting or birdwatching), can be used as an objective metric to evaluate the benefits of alternative habitat acquisition and restoration projects relative to the human dimensions objective of the NAWMP. These data and methods show promise for incorporating human dimensions objectives into habitat delivery and understanding potential trade‐offs relative to biological objectives. Published 2017. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

Although numerous studies have focused on estimating economic benefits associated with big game hunting experiences, economic valuation efforts examining small game hunting have largely been neglected. This is especially surprising with respect to hunting grouse, a family of widely distributed upland game birds targeted by about 800,000 hunters in 2011. Furthermore, despite efforts by federal and state agencies directed at improving and increasing public land for recreational hunting purposes, a dearth of studies exist regarding the economic benefits of public land to hunters. Using the travel cost method and data from a 2008 survey of Michigan ruffed grouse hunters, we examine relationships between hunting site choice and publicly accessible hunting land. We find that federally owned land, state-owned land, and publicly accessible, privately owned Commercial Forest Act (CFA) land are positive predictors of hunter site selection (P < 0.001). Given this relationship, we then estimated the economic benefits of different types of publicly accessible land to ruffed grouse hunters by examining the willingness of hunters to incur increasing travel costs to hunt in counties with greater amounts of publicly accessible land. We estimated the economic benefits of publicly accessible hunting land for ruffed grouse hunters in Michigan to be over $20 million in 2008, with economic benefits of CFA land comprising about $6.9 million of this annual total. Estimating the economic benefits of publicly accessible hunting land for outdoor recreationists provides a useful metric for policy makers to use in evaluating how changes in the amount and nature of publicly accessible hunting land affects these individuals. Ó 2013 The Wildlife Society.