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Behind the economics of hunting in Andalusian forests

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Abstract

Hunting in Spain represents an imperfect market in which some hunters pay a price that is below what would be paid or they simply do not pay a market price. This article evidences the welfare that hunting activities provide to hunters in the forests of southern Spain. To do so, a contingent valuation survey of 557 hunters was conducted, and their maximum willingness to pay (WTP) to maintain their hunting activity over a hunting season was obtained. Bids were established according to the individual expenditure in the hunting market, thereby incorporating heterogeneity into the very design of the valuation exercise. The results show an additional WTP of 212 euros per hunter during the 2009–2010 hunting season, meaning 24% above their actual mean expenditure during that season. Likewise, the research shows how small game hunters are the ones who, in relative terms, would be willing to pay more for the hunting services.

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Notes

  1. If we take the median as the reference, general expenses for hunting would be 385 euros per hunter.

  2. If we take the median as the reference, recreational hunting expenses would amount to 400 euros per hunter.

  3. Note that with the collected information, we cannot classify 30 hunters, given that they did not specify if they participated in small and/or big game hunting.

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Acknowledgements

This article is the result of the RECAMAN project (Renta y Capital de los Montes de Andalucía). The authors would like to thank the Regional Government of Andalucía for the contributed financing (contract number NET165602) and for the information provided about hunting licenses. Likewise, various researchers cooperated on designing the questionnaire and the simulated markets. They include José L. Oviedo and Alejandro Caparrós (IPP-CSIC), Juan Carranza (CRCP), Casimiro Herruzo (ECSEN-UPM), and María Martínez-Jauregui (INIA-CIFOR). Moreover, assistance and advising were provided by experts. They include experts on social research techniques from IESA-CSIC (Carmela Gutiérrez, Sara Pasadas, Carlos Priego, and Marga Zarco), experts on hunting from AMAyA (Paulino Fandos and Luis Guzmán), and experts from the Regional Government of Andalucía (Rafael Cadenas).

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Correspondence to Mario Soliño.

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Soliño, M., Farizo, B.A. & Campos, P. Behind the economics of hunting in Andalusian forests. Eur J Wildl Res 63, 47 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-017-1103-8

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