Open Collections

Zeman, Jesse

University of British Columbia

British Columbia is suffering from a dramatic decline of funding for fish and wildlife management as a proportion of the provincial budget. In 1954, the proportion of the provincial budget dedicated to fish and wildlife management was 0.63%, and by 1994 it had declined to 0.08%. Since then, the budget for fish and wildlife has been unreported. Declines in funding limits the Province’s ability to monitor and conserve fish and wildlife. At the same time , changing social expectations and legislation have made fish and wildlife managers’ jobs more complicated. Fish and wildlife populations are also in decline. Hunters are disproportionately affected by declines in wildlife. For rural communities, hunting plays a significant role in terms of food security, economic vitality, and is an important source of recreation for those who hunt. The number of moose harvested by resident hunters in British Columbia was 10,894 in 1976, peaked at 13,045 in 1979, and declined to 4,017 in 2018. To sustainably manage wildlife, funding, science, and governance are needed. Resident hunters (those who reside in British Columbia and purchase hunting licenses) are one group that could play a role in increasing funding and ultimately improving wildlife management in British Columbia. To estimate resident hunters’ preferences and willingness-to-pay for wildlife and moose management, this thesis employed a survey and choice experiment (n=2,104). The survey included a discrete choice experiment as well as qualitative pre- and post-choice experiment questions related to choice experiment attributes. The choice experiment attributes were: harvestable surplus; trade-off between opportunity and harvest, proportion of license fees dedicated to wildlife management, and governance; the payment vehicle was moose license price. Both the qualitative survey questions and quantitative choice experiment results found strong preferences for an increase in the harvestable surplus of moose, a focus on maximizing the opportunity to hunt versus the likelihood of harvesting a moose, changes to governance, and dedicating revenue from license fees towards moose and wildlife management. In contrast, results indicated respondents are dissatisfied with the existing governance structure of elected officials managing wildlife, preferring first a Game Commission or second a Multi-stakeholder, Multi-Government Commission. The findings suggest that changes to moose management in British Columbia could result in substantially more funding while increasing resident hunters’ utility.

Text

2022-08-19

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/82418

Interdisciplinary Studies

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/