REGIONAL ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF ELK HUNTING LICENSE REDUCTIONS IN NORTHWEST COLORADO

Abstract

Big game hunting is a vital revenue source for state wildlife agencies and brings tourism to rural economies. The winter of 2022-2023, which drastically reduced big game populations in Northwest Colorado, took funding away from Colorado Parks and Wildlife and took revenue away from businesses in the area. As wildlife populations stand to become more variable in the future, it's critical that state managers understand the full scope of the economic consequences of hunting permit reductions. Current methods for estimating the economic impact of hunters assume limited heterogeneity in hunter spending. Which likely estimates larger impacts than are occurring.In this study, lost economic impact was calculated from fewer elk hunters traveling to three specific herds. I quantify lost economic impact as direct payments to CPW and hunter spending in the local area. IMPLAN analysis was incorporated to estimate additional multiplier effects from tourism dollars entering the local economy. Four alternative methods of deriving hunter expenditures from survey data were evaluated against each other. Results show that the common method of calculating total hunter spending produces inaccurate estimates when the data is heavily skewed. Total lost economic impact from the 2022-2023 winter ranged from $17 million to $1.4 million, depending on which profile of hunter spending was applied. Disaggregating spending by permit demand allowed state managers to minimize lost economic impact by prioritizing the highest demand hunters. I also evaluated the tradeoff Colorado Parks and Wildlife made by choosing greater license reductions than were originally warned in the immediate aftermath of the winter. Based on observed elk growth rates from 2023-2025, Colorado Parks and Wildlife could have allocated more permits after the 2022-2023 winter and maintained the same elk recovery timeline. Roughly $950,000 of economic impact was lost by choosing to increase license reductions beyond what was originally warned. State managers can minimize lost impact from wildlife population shocks by prioritizing license reductions to low demand hunters and maintaining permits for high demand hunters. However, state managers account for more than economic revenue in the decision making process.