Abstract
Private landowners are key partners in chronic wasting disease (CWD) management, especially in landscapes where there is limited public ownership. In this study, we evaluated landowners' preferences for alternative hypothetical CWD management programs using a stated choice experiment. We were particularly interested in understanding preferences for the use of financial incentives to motivate white-tailed deer harvest and facilitate hunter access to private lands as potential CWD management tools. We used latent class analysis to characterize preference heterogeneity among landowners stemming from patterns of choice. We compared means and distributions of auxiliary variables related to landowners' perceived risks, trust, attitudes toward management, and sociodemographics across latent classes stemming from choice model results. The pooled model demonstrated that reducing deer population density, providing payments to landowners for CWD-positive deer taken from their property, the form of incentives for public access, and banning recreational deer feeding had a small positive effect on respondents' choice of CWD management program. However, providing financial payments to hunters for harvesting CWD-positive deer and the use of targeted culling had the opposite effect on choice. Latent class models revealed that a majority of respondents exhibited a pattern of preference where all forms of incentives exerted a negative effect on choice, but smaller subsets of landowners positively evaluate the use of some incentives. Post-hoc contrasts revealed relationships between patterns of preferences and trust, risk, and attitudes toward CWD management with small to medium effects. Results demonstrated limited support for the use of financial incentives as a tool to manage access and harvest in the southeast Minnesota CWD management zone.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | e1401 |
| Journal | Wildlife Society Bulletin |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The survey described in this report was conducted by the MNDNR and was not conducted by or on behalf of the U.S. Geological Survey. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. At the time of publication, data were not publicly available from the MNDNR and questions about data availability should be directed to Adam Landon (email: Adam.Landon@state.mn.us ) at the MNDNR. We thank L. Peterson, T. Froberg, and the staff in the Wildlife Health Program at the Minnesota DNR for their help and insights. Finally, we would like to thank the many landowners that contributed their precious time to make this research possible. You are the backbone of deer management in southeast Minnesota, we (Minnesota DNR) cannot manage this disease without you, and we truly value your opinions. Thanks to S. Rodriguez (Associate Editor), A. Knipps (Editorial Assistant), A. Tunstall (Copy Editor), J. Levengood (Content Editor), and 2 anonymous reviewers for their reviews and suggestions, which improved the manuscript. We would also like to acknowledge the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration (grant W‐73‐R2) for funding support.
Funding Information:
The survey described in this report was conducted by the MNDNR and was not conducted by or on behalf of the U.S. Geological Survey. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. At the time of publication, data were not publicly available from the MNDNR and questions about data availability should be directed to Adam Landon (email: Adam.Landon@state.mn.us) at the MNDNR. We thank L. Peterson, T. Froberg, and the staff in the Wildlife Health Program at the Minnesota DNR for their help and insights. Finally, we would like to thank the many landowners that contributed their precious time to make this research possible. You are the backbone of deer management in southeast Minnesota, we (Minnesota DNR) cannot manage this disease without you, and we truly value your opinions. Thanks to S. Rodriguez (Associate Editor), A. Knipps (Editorial Assistant), A. Tunstall (Copy Editor), J. Levengood (Content Editor), and 2 anonymous reviewers for their reviews and suggestions, which improved the manuscript. We would also like to acknowledge the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration (grant W-73-R2) for funding support.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors. Wildlife Society Bulletin published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Wildlife Society. This article has been contributed to by U.S. Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA.
Keywords
- chronic wasting disease
- discrete choice experiment
- private lands
- regulatory preference
- white-tailed deer