Application of Cost and Value Comparisons to Iowa Wildlife

There is an increasing demand for methods to determine wildlife values and costs in order to allow comparisons with marketed goods which compete with wildlife for funds and resources. For relatively small changes in the total wildlife supply, estimation of the value of this increment in supply should be compared with the associated costs for the increment in supply. Statewide average values and costs are usually meaningless in this type of comparison. It is advocated that better estimates of changes in wildlife abundance caused by government and private activities will provide much useful information even with the limited economic information available. Estimation of wildlife values is most easily handled in terms of the number and value of recreation days provided by wildlife. Market values for some types of wildlife recreation are becoming available for use in evaluating small changes in the wildlife supply. However, evaluation of large changes in the wildlife supply and estimation of values for entire state wildlife resources is a much more complex problem. The difference between estimating incremental wildlife values is explained and a promising method to estimate the total value of major segments of Iowa\u27s wildlife is proposed