CONTROLLING TRANSBOUNDARY WILDLIFE DAMAGE - MODELING UNDER ALTERNATIVE MANAGEMENT SCENARIOS

The migratory nature of nuisance wildlife populations creates a specia l management problem by imposing a negative diffusion externality on l andowners undertaking control efforts. This paper reviews three cost-m inimizing wildlife-control models, each internalizing the diffusion ex ternality under different management scenarios, namely, unilateral man agement, bilateral management, and centralized management. The three m anagement scenarios lead to different optimal behaviors. Property owne rs exerting unilateral control must leave some wildlife untrapped to g enerate sufficient population pressure against the flow of continual i mmigration from neighboring populations. Analysis of the bilateral mod el indicates that noncooperating neighboring landowners having varying pay-off functions will end up with leaving all wildlife untrapped in their parcels. Under the centralized management scenario, landowners f ind it most profitable to collectively delegate the control responsibi lity of an entire watershed to a single manager.