No. 14/2011: On the management of interconnected wildlife populations


Abstract

Economic interdependency of wildlife or fish stocks is usually attributed to ecological interdependency, such as predator – prey and competitive relationships, or to density dependent migration of species between different areas. This paper provides another channel for economic interdependency of wildlife where density independent migration and market price interaction affect the management strategies among different landowners. Management is studied under three market conditions for selling hunting licences: price taking behaviour, monopoly market and duopoly market. Harvesting of the Scandinavian moose is used as an example. The paper provides several results on how economic interdependency works through the migration pattern. When a duopoly market is introduced, hunting license price interaction among the landowners plays an additional role in determining the optimal harvesting strategy.