A Probabilistic Shortage of Private Land Opened to Hunters in Northwest Minnesota

Abstract

Outdoor recreation in Northwest Minnesota is popular year round, and many residents and visitors participate in activities such as hunting, fishing, snowmobiling, boating, and much more. Land available for hunting, however, is at a particular premium. Hunters overall do not appear to have enough land on which to hunt as they compete with both other hunters and state regulations. Some private land owners have land that they keep for their own hunting purposes, and some of that land is kept exclusively for hunting. Private landowners in NWMN have consistently demonstrated an unwillingness to open their land to outside consumptive recreational uses, such as hunting, even for a fee. This situation may leads to potential overuse of some land with respect to hunting, while other land is potentially underused, creating a potential "tragedy of the anticommons". Meanwhile, hotels and resorts in the region are engaged in the ever-growing worldwide trend of ecotourism and agritourism, though they have relatively few arrangements with private land owners. In this study, a probabilistic demand approach is used to analyze strategic interaction between land owners and hunters based on the results of three surveys conducted for the State of Minnesota and the Economic Development Administration (EDA). Mechanisms to create an outcome that aligns the utility maximization strategies of land owners and hunters are suggested.