JOE Revised Submission. 2.3.15 Center for Responsible Travel

TheComparative EconomicValue of Bear Viewing and Bear Hunting in the Great Bear Rainforest

Authors: Martha Honey, Jim Johnson, Claire Menke, Austin Cruz, Judy Karwacki, and William H. Durham

This study is the first to compare the economic value of bear viewing and trophy hunting of both grizzly(Ursus arctos) and black bears (U. americanus) in the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia (BC), Canada. We assess trends in these two sectors of wildlife recreation over several decades and analyze their economic impacts based on 2012 data. We examine both non-resident bear hunting with guide outfitters and independent local (resident) hunters, as well as bear viewing offered by tourism companies in the Great Bear Rainforest (GBR). The study was conducted in the midst of public controversy as the BC government continues to authorize bear hunting despite the Coastal First Nations’ call for a moratorium. We provide strong evidence that bear viewing in the Great Bear Rainforest generates more economic value, both in terms of total visitor expenditures and GDP, and offers greater employment and government revenue than does bear hunting. As we show, bear viewing companies generated over 12 times more in visitor spending than guided non-resident and independent resident hunters combined ($15.1 million versus $1.2 million) and 11 times more in government revenues ($7.3 million versus $660,500[1]). Such findings should be useful to policy makers in determining allocations of public resources and priorities for conservation efforts.In our assessment,if bear viewing continues to expand at its current rate, the economy of the Great Bear Rainforest will not experience any negative impacts from a ban on bear hunting.

Keywords: Great Bear Rainforest; Canada; sustainable tourism; bear hunting; bear viewing; economic valuation

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Introduction

This study, undertaken by the Center for Responsible Travel (CREST) in collaboration with two BC-based firms, Pacific Analytics and Small World Consulting, assesses the relative economic value of the bear hunting and bear viewing industries in the Great Bear Rainforest (GBR) of British Columbia, the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest.The GBR is home to grizzly and black bears, and is the only place on earth where the iconic all-white form of black bear – the Kermode, or Spirit Bear – is found. In 2012, the Coastal First Nations, an alliance of the Native American tribes that act as stewards of the GBR, announced thatthey were declaring an end to bear hunting in the region. Among the reasons given, Coastal First Nations pointed out that grizzly bear trophy hunting threatens the growing ecotourism economy centered on bear viewing. It also threatens the persistence of culturally-important Spirit Bears, the black bears that carry the Kermode gene. Since one cannot tell by sight which black bears carry the gene, a ban on hunting best preserves the Kermode gene and Spirit Bears for future generations.

Despite efforts of the First Nations, the BC government has continued to authorize hunting of black and grizzly bears in the GBR, contending that the provincial government has the sole authority to regulate hunting. Local regulations apply to both local citizens of BC province who hunt (hereafter termed resident hunters) and hunters who visit as tourists to the region (hereafter called non-resident hunters). BC residents can hunt independently, after obtaining licenses and permits, but those from outside the province must be accompanied by a registered guide outfitter. Different taxation, legal structures, and hunting territories also apply to each of these two hunter populations.

BC’s Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations (MFLNRO) argues that the hunting industry is important because it contributes $350 million to the entire province annually (CBC News, 2012; Shore, 2012). This figure is also cited by the hunting outfitter representation body, the Guide Outfitters Association of British Columbia (GOABC), which has claimed in recent years that between $116 to over $120 million is begin generated by guided tours of non-resident hunters (Vancouver Sun, 2012). As described below, these figures were again reported in a September 2013report on the economic value of resident hunting in BC (Responsive Management, 2013).

Literature Review

Our assessment of the economic value of bear hunting and viewing activities contributes to the larger issue of consumptive versus non-consumptive use of wildlife in recreational activities. We conducted a literature review of academic journals,government reports, and documents and analysis by academics, international agencies, and environmental organizations that evaluated the economic contributions of specific wildlife species as well as the overall value of wildlife hunting and viewing. We identified the appropriate literature using the Google Scholar Search engine as well as a list of leading English language academic journals on tourism and wildlife. We based our searched on a series of strategic keywords including ‘economic value of wildlife hunting and viewing’, ‘wildlife viewing’,‘wildlife hunting’,‘non-consumptive and consumptivewildlife tourism’, ‘viewing and hunting tourism’, ‘wildlife recreation’, ‘wildlife ecotourism’, and‘trophy hunt’. We also used these key words to search specific species where there have been efforts to ban hunting, including whales, sharks, elephants, lions, and bears.Here we briefly summarize key findings from this literature review.

In terms of the overall value of wildlife hunting and viewing, a 2011 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey found that 13.7 million people went hunting and spent $34.0 billion on trips, equipment, licenses, and other items. That same year, nearly 71.8 million people – over five times more -- observed wildlife, spent US $55.0 billion – or 60% more -- on these activities. Bears were not listed among the wildlife hunted, but they were among the large wildlife mammals observed (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, 2012). Wildlife viewing has been increasing in the U.S.: in 2001, 66 million adults spent US$38.4 million feeding, observing, and photographing wildlife (Higginbottom, 2004), and this marked an increase over findings from five years earlier (Caudill and Laughland, 1998). No comparable statistics for hunting were provided in these articles.

Much of the research on hunting and viewing activities has focused on specific specifies of wildlife. Among the numerous studies of recreational whale-watching tours and commercial whaling (hunting), a 2008 analysis estimated that 13 million people in 119 countries participated in whale watching, generating a total expenditure of US$ 2.1 billion in direct and indirect expenditures. This reflects the rapid growth in whale watching in recent years: from 4 million and 31 countries in 1991 to 9 million in 87 countries in 1998, with a growth of over 12% per year in through the 1990s (Curtin, 2003; O’Connor, Campbell, Cortez, & Knowles, 2009). Similarly, direct and indirect expenditures from whale-watching excursions grew from US $14 million in 1981 to over US $1 billion in 1998, with an “extremely high” rate of return for community-based/owned whale-watching businesses of 25% (Hoyt, 2001).

The whale watching industry slowly gained prominence and profitability after the International Whaling Commission ban on commercial hunting in 1986 (Cunningham, Huijbens & Wearing, 2012). In comparing whale viewing and hunting, a global evaluation in 1988 (just after the ban) found that whaling brought an estimated US$154 million in revenue while whale watching brought only US$56 million in total expenditures. A decade later, 1998, as stated above, whale viewing had grown to over US $1 billion; no comparable global estimates for whaling were available (Krauss 1989; Holt and Hvenegaard, 2002).

However research in several locations– Tonga, Norway, Azores, Iceland, and Japan – of both whaling and whale watching offers evidence that whale watching, an expanding industry, is generating more revenue than whaling, a declining industry. For instance, a 1993 assessment of some 16 resident whales in Ogota, Japan determined that if whaled, the meat would bring US $4.3 million in revenue, more than whale-watching was generating per year. However, considered over 15 years, with tourist numbers remaining constant, whale watching would bring US $41.4 million, or nearly ten times more than a one-time harvest of meat from these same whales (Hoyt, 1993; Holt and Hvenegaard, 2002).

Similarly, research on other species show that viewing over the life of an animal generates far more revenue than hunting. In Africa, for instance, an adult lion in Kenya’s Amboseli National Park was estimated to earn US $515,000 from wildlife viewers per year, while sport hunting generated only US$8,500 per kill (Thresher, 1981). Similarly, an elephant herd was estimated to be generating $610,000 per year from wildlife viewers, while hunting was generating less than 10% of this amount (Holt and Hvenegaard, 2002). Elsewhere in Africa, a large percentage of the US$6 billion that South Africaearned from tourism in 1995came from wildlife viewing, while only slightly over US$2 million came from trophy hunting fees for rhinos and other wildlife (Holt and Hvenegaard, 2002). Similarly, Botswana earns some $100 million per year from nature tourism, but only a tiny fraction comes from trophy hunting (Nilsson, 2005).

The growing body of studies and reports on shark viewing and hunting also demonstrate similar findings. For instance, shark diving in Palau is generating US $18 million per year while, if harvested, the economic value of the approximately 100 sharks viewed by tourists would be at most US $10,000, a fraction of their worth as a non-consumptive resource (Vianna, et al, 2012). Similarly, in the Maldives, a single grey reef shark, which can live at least 18 years, was estimated to be worth over $35,000 per year at the most popular dive sites, while local fishers received only US $32 if the same shark were caught (Topelko& Deardon, 2005). Shark-observing was estimated to be generating US $2.3 million annually for the local economy, leading the Maldives government to declare a ban on shark fishing in 2010 (Gallagher & Hammerschlag, 2011).

Our literature review also sought to assess the economic value of bear hunting and viewing in North America, outside BC. Two studies on polar bear hunting by the Inuit in the Canadian Arctic are particularly pertinent to the current debates regarding trophy hunting in the GBR. Both examine the economic, cultural, and ecological dimensions of the growth of sport huntingcompared to the Inuit’s traditional subsistence hunt of polar bear. In one, Dowsley determines that each polar bear sport hunt bear by an Inuit community brings about 20 times more monetary value than a subsistence hunt. She finds that commercial polar bear hunting is concurrently helping to revive cultural traditions such as dog meshing while also positivelyinfluencing Inuit views towards western-style wildlife management and the market economy (Dowsley, 2009). In another analysis, Freeman and Weinzel also find that community-based polar bear trophy hunts involving non-local trophy hunters are generating much greater economic returns for the Inuit than subsistence hunting. Further, the authors contend that commercial hunting is not threatening cultural values which emphasize conservation of local wildlife resources (Freeman & Weinzel, 2006). While both demonstrate the economic value of trophy hunting for Inuit communities, they not include the central issue for First Nations in the GBR: the economic value of bear watching ecotourism versus trophy hunting.

Instructive to this debate is a 1998 paper (Miller et al.,1998) that investigates the attitudes of Alaska residents regarding the economic benefits of hunting and viewing of brown and black bears. Their research indicates that resident bear viewing had a greater economic impact (US $29.1 million per year) than the combined value of bear hunting trips taken by nonresidents (US $17 million) and residents (US $4.1 million), which total US $21.1 million annually.This study and the preponderance of others examined here demonstrate that where wildlife viewing ecotourism is an option, it brings more economic value than sport hunting over the life span of an animal, and sometimes even on an annual basis.

  • The Economics of Bear Hunting and Viewing in British Columbia

As part of the literature review, we examined over two-dozen reports that included information on the economics of hunting and wildlife viewing conducted in BC province from 1981 to the present, in part to determine the origin of the widely cited $350 million figure. In September 2013, as we were in the midst of our research, MFLNRO released new analysis it had commissioned to assess expenditures of resident hunting. The report, Expenditures of British Columbia Resident Hunters, which was carried out by a U.S. consulting firm Responsible Management, estimated that over 79,000 adult hunters were active in the 2012-13 hunting year and that on average they spent $2,900 each for total annual expenditure of approximately $230 million. This finding, together with GOABC’s estimates that guide outfitters is generating from $116 million to over $120 million a year from non-resident hunters, (GOABC, 2010; GOABC, 2013) neatly totals about $350 million. However, as is discussed in more detail below, CREST found a number of problems with this MFLNRO/Responsible Management report and concludes that its expenditure estimates appear inflated.

Several earlier reports, including some financed by hunting associations, found lower figures for the economic value of hunting in BC. For instance, in 2003 the GOABC commissioned Pacific Analytics to do an in-depth analysis of the province’s guide outfitting industry. That report found that the direct value-added (GDP) impacts of non-resident hunting in BC were $40 million in 2002 (Pacific Analytics, 2003). Other research, undertaken by the BC Government’s official statistical agency, BC STATS, found that, based on 2003 data, the direct GDP value of the resident hunting sector was $29 million and the non-resident hunting sector was $19 million, for a total of $48 million (BC Stats, 2005). Taken together, these studies show a maximum total direct GDP value of $69 million for resident and non-resident hunting in BC a decade ago – far below the oft-quoted figure of $350 million. Given the fact that both resident and non-resident hunting have contracted somewhat since the early 2000s, even after accounting for inflation, it is unlikely that the true value (in GDP terms) of the whole hunting sector to the BC economy was much above a $80-$90 million figure in 2012.

Based on our review past research, the economic value of bear viewing seems equally imprecise and even less carefully tracked than bear hunting. For instance, while the BC STATS analysis mentioned above calculated the economic value of resident and non-resident hunting, it did not assess the value of wildlife viewing because “no data on the value of this component…[are] available.” (BC STATS, 2005, p. 1) Several other reportssought to examine the value of wildlife viewing in BC, but they did so without breaking out either bear viewing as a separate activity or the GBR as a distinct geographical area; as with hunting, the estimated economic values varied widely. A 1995 report estimated that the direct use value of wildlife viewing in BC was $505 million (Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, 1995), while another report based on 2001 data found that BC’s nature-based tourism contributed $1.55 billion in revenue (Tourism British Columbia Research Services, 2005). A third report, also based on 2001 data, estimated that “the total GDP impacts of commercial nature-based tourism” was $783 million, while direct impact was $429 million (Tourism British Columbia Research Services, 2004, p. i).

Only a few of these reportshave sought to directly compare the economic value of bear hunting and viewing in BC. For instance, the 1995 report by the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks (mentioned above) compared grizzly bear hunting (both resident and non-resident) and viewing in BC. It found that resident and non-resident hunters spent a total of $2.83 million on grizzly bear hunting. It further estimated the total direct expenditures by resident and non-resident hunters for all types of hunting in BC at $144 million. In terms of viewing, it found that 25% of people in BC took trips that included bear viewing, but the report did not calculate the economic value of bear viewing. It did, as stated above, estimate that the total direct use value of all wildlife viewing outings in BC was over $505 million per year, or 3.5 times more than for hunting (Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, 1995). In 2003, Raincoast Conservation Foundation, an environmental organization, commissioned another report that compared the economic value of grizzly bear hunting and viewing in BC. It estimated that for “ecotourism operations involving grizzly viewing, total revenues directly attributable to the presence of grizzlies are approximately $6.1 million annually,” while the revenue generated by “grizzly hunting activities” conducted by guide outfitters was $3.3 million (Parker & Gorter, 2003, p. 3). Over the next decade, there were no other assessments that compared the economic value of bear hunting and bear viewing in all or part of British Columbia.

As we were beginning our own research, we received an unpublished paper, “Coastal Grizzlies: An Economic Overview of Grizzly Bear Viewing Versus Hunting on the Central Coast of British Columbia,” by Rosie Child of the Hakai-Raincoast Applied Conservation Science Lab at the University of Victoria. (Child, April 2013). This research calculated, based on surveys and economic analysis of 23 bear viewing companies and six guide operators that grizzly bear viewing revenues in BC’s central and north coast (essentially equivalent to the Great Bear Rainforest) were over $16.6 million in 2012, while revenues from grizzly bear hunting with guide outfitters were just $120,500. Child’s paperproved to be most relevant and recent analysis, although our research goes a few steps further because we look at both grizzly and black bears and at independent, unguided resident hunters as well as non-resident hunters accompanied by guide outfitters.