The costs and benefits of a migratory species under different management schemes

This paper analyses how different management schemes influence the exploitation and economics of a wildlife population-the moose (Alces alces)-that is both a value (harvesting income) and a pest (forestry damage). Two regimes are explored; the unified management scheme where the wildlife manager aims to find harvesting quotas that maximise the overall benefit of the moose population, and the market solution where the landowners follow their narrow self-interests and maximise their private profit. Because the moose is partly a migratory species, these regimes will differ both with respect to harvesting income and browsing damage, and the landowners will experience different profit. The unified scheme is very similar to the actual Scandinavian management, while the market solution is closer to the management policy one finds in North America. In the first part of the paper it is shown how the harvesting quotas and browsing damage under these two regimes are influenced by dispersal as well as other ecological and economic factors. In the last part of the paper it is demonstrated that under the unified management regime the present practice of neglecting migration may lead to sub-optimally sized populations of migrating moose and an overall economic loss. It is also shown that neglecting migration leads to a substantial profit transfer among the landowners. The model is supported by a real life numerical example.