A Cost‒Benefit Analysis of AlternativeManagement Strategies for Red Deer in Denmark

In this paper, we conduct a cost‒benefit analysis (CBA) of alternative management strategies for red deer in Denmark: free harvest, trophy hunting, maximum harvest and natural demographic population compositions. To capture the effect of each strategy, we use a biological sex- and age-structured population model, and in the net benefit, we include meat values, recreational values, browsing damage costs and traffic damage costs. These values and costs are assumed to differ for the various sex and age classes of red deer. We show that the maximum harvest strategy leads to a reasonably high positive total net benefit, while the free harvest strategy yields a small positive net benefit. Furthermore, the trophy hunting strategy generate a high negative net benefit, while a small negative net benefit is obtained under the strategies with a natural demographic population composition.

JEL codes: D61; Q29; Q51