Controlling wildlife damage by diffusing beaver population : a bioeconomic application of the distributed parameter control model

The beaver population in the Southeastern United States has caused severe damage to valuable timber land through dam-building and flooding of bottom-land forest. Traditionally, beavers have been trapped by small group of people as a source of their livelihood. The low pelt price in the recent years has failed to stimulate adequate trapping pressure, and thus, resulted in increased beaver population and damage losses. The low trapping pressure has left the burden of nuisance control on property owners. Since the beaver population is mobile, extermination of beavers from affected parcels results in migration of beavers from neighboring less controlled parcels to less populated controlled parcels. This backward migration of beavers from uncontrolled habitat to controlled habitat imposes a negative diffusion externality on the owners of controlled parcels because they have to incur the future cost of trapping immigrating beavers. Unless all the land owners agree to control the beaver population simultaneously, the diffusion externality could result in a low incentive for control of beaver population on the part of individual land owners, causing a wedge between social and private needs for controlling beaver population. This study attempts to develop a bioeconomic model that incorporates dispersive population dynamics of beavers into the design of a cost-minimizing trapping strategy. While recognizing the need for several management options, depending on the land owners attitude about beavers, this study focuses its attention on the situation where all the land owners in a given habitat share common interest of controlling beaver nuisance, and collectively agree to place the area-wide control decision in the hands of a public agency, on a cost sharing basis. The model is based on the notion that the public manager attempts to minimize the present value combined costs of beaver damage and trapping over a finite period of time subject to spatiotemporal dynamics of beaver population. The time and spatial dynamics of beaver population is summarized by the parabolic diffusive Volterra-Lotka partial differential equation. Thus, the current problem is a typical distributed parameter control problem. The cost-minimizing area-wide trapping model is capable of characterizing the beaver control strategy that leaves enough beavers after taking into account the net migration at each location and time, so as to strike the optimal balance between timber damage and trapping cost. The marginality condition governing this tradeoff requires that the marginal damage savings from the beavers trapped at each location equal the marginal costs of trapping. The marginal savings from trapping activity, in turn, is measured as the imputed nuisance value (shadow price) of the beaver stock in a unit area. The optimality system for this problem that characterizes the optimal control is solved numerically. The validity of the theoretical model is empirically examined using the bioeconomic data collected for the Wildlife Management Regions of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The empirical simulation generated discrete values for the optimal beaver densities and trapping rates across all the individual operational units over time. The entire distribution of optimal beaver densities does gradually and smoothly decline over the period of time. The unevenness of the initial population distribution smoothes out eventually across the beaver habitat. At each geographical location, towards the end of the planning period optimal trapping rate will become zero, whereas the population density asymptotically approaches zero. The sensitivity analysis where the cost and damage parameters of the model are alternated between high and low values indicates that an increase in the damage potential of beavers could substantially increase the net present value total cost. On the other hand, an increase in the cost of beaver trapping adds only marginally to the total cost, conserving more number of beavers. The geographical variation in the beaver damage potential has a noticeable reflection on the spatial distribution of trapping rates, with little impact on the optimal densities. The areas with higher beaver damage potentials require more intensive trapping operation

Ecological-economic assessment of the effects of freshwater flow in the Florida Everglades on recreational fisheries

This research develops an integrated methodology to determine the economic value to anglers of recreational fishery ecosystem services in Everglades National Park that could result from different water management scenarios. The study first used bio-hydrological models to link managed freshwater inflows to indicators of fishery productivity and ecosystem health, then link those models to anglers\u27 willingness-to-pay for various attributes of the recreational fishing experience and monthly fishing effort. This approach allowed us to estimate the foregone economic benefits of failing to meet monthly freshwater delivery targets. The study found that the managed freshwater delivery to the Park had declined substantially over the years and had fallen short of management targets. This shortage in the flow resulted in the decline of biological productivity of recreational fisheries in downstream coastal areas. This decline had in turn contributed to reductions in the overall economic value of recreational ecosystem services enjoyed by anglers. The study estimated the annual value of lost recreational services at $68.81million. The losses were greater in the months of dry season when the water shortage was higher and the number of anglers fishing also was higher than the levels in wet season. The study also developed conservative estimates of implicit price of water for recreation, which ranged from$11.88 per AF in November to $112.11 per AF in April. The annual average price was$41.54 per AF. Linking anglers\u27 recreational preference directly to a decision variable such as water delivery is a powerful and effective way to make management decision

THE IMPACT OF EUROPEAN COMMUNITY\u27S HUMANE TRAPPING RESOLUTION ON U.S. WILDLIFE DAMAGE CONTROL PROGRAM

This paper discusses the implications that The European Economic Community\u27s recent Wild Fur Regulation (WFR) might have on the U.S. wildlife damage control program. Beginning Jan. 1, 1995, the regulation will ban fur imports originating from countries which fail to (1) stop foothold trapping, and (2) adopt international humane trapping standards. Countries which pledge to adopt humane trapping standards will be granted a one-year extension to comply with the WFR. Because the European community is an important market for American furs, the regulation will affect the trapping of many American fur-bearing species, including raccoon, beaver, bobcat, muskrat, coyote, otter, badger, lynx, marten sable, and ermine

Role of HMGB1 and mitochondria in organic dust induced airway inflammation

Due to a sharp increase in global demand for protein of animal origin, animal production systems have transformed into industrial-scale operations known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Due to the high animal density within CAFOs, these facilities generate and accumulate various of contaminants such as airborne dust, gases, and microbes. Organic dust (OD) from such large animal confinement facilities is a complex mixture of microbial-associated components and particulate matter known to elicit chronic respiratory diseases in exposed workers. Examination of clinical samples from exposed workers revealed the prevalence of fevers, airway hyperresponsiveness, and an increase in neutrophils, macrophages, and proinflammatory mediators including TNFα, IL-6, and IL-8 (CXCL8) in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid. Studies have also shown the release of damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) and activation of multiple overlapping signaling pathways on OD exposure. In the following dissertation, we investigated the role of high mobility group box 1 (HMGB1), a ubiquitously present transcription factor and DAMP, in OD-mediated airway inflammation. HMGB1 has been shown to mediate the activation of innate immune responses and plays a critical role at the intersection of host inflammatory response to sterile and to infectious threats. The goal of our research was to understand the role and impact of HMGB1 in OD-mediated airway inflammation. We show that OD-mediated HMGB1 release amplifies cytokine release and tissue damage. Using experimental strategies that selectively target HMGB1, we effectively reversed activation of specific immune signaling molecules and cytokine release and significantly attenuated damage in OD exposed in vitro and in vivo models. In addition to the myriad of immune signaling and responses, inflammation contributes to cellular structural and functional changes as well. Recently, mitochondria are emerging as therapeutic targets in addition to their essential role in cellular respiration. Emerging evidence shows that exposure to contaminants damages mitochondrial structure and alters function. We identified that OD exposure would induce ultrastructural changes in mitochondria and transcriptional changes in genes encoding proteins related to mitochondrial structure and function. We further investigated how the pathologic (secreted) and physiologic (nuclear) roles of HMGB1 would influence OD-exposure induced mitochondrial dysfunction, and airway inflammation. By using targeted HMGB1 antagonists we identified that HMGB1 could be a critical regulator of mitochondrial structure and function. We showed that neutralization of HMGB1 rescues OD-induced mitochondrial damages at structural and transcriptomic levels. Overall, our results highlight a critical role HMGB1, and mitochondria play in the progression of OD mediated airway inflammation. Identifying a mechanistic correlation between these two factors will likely help develop effective therapeutic strategies.</p

Trade related intellectual property rights for genetic resources: Implications for developing countries

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