Cattle and wildlife competition for forage: Budget versus bioeconomic analyses of public range improvements in British Columbia

We analyze the gains of public investments in range productivity when cattl e compete for forage with wildlife herbivores. Ignoring extra-market values by applying conventional budget analyses leads to higher cattle stocking r ates and lower overall social benefits of public range improvements. This i s demonstrated numerically for public forage in British Columbia, where pri vate profitable cattle stocking rates on newly seeded range exceed those th at are socially optimal, perhaps by as much as double depending on the assu mptions one makes about marginal preservation benefits. This highlights the importance of applying dynamic optimization, bioeconomic models to analyze investments in public range.