Measuring the Recreational Use Value of Migratory Shorebirds on the Delaware Bay

In this article we estimate the recreational use value of household trips to view shorebirds during the annual horseshoe crab/shorebird migration on the Delaware Bay. We use contingent valuation to estimate the value of day and overnight trips separately and use a discrete choice question followed b...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inMarine Resource Economics Vol. 25; no. 3
Main Authors Myers, Kelley H, Parsons, George R, Edwards, Peter Eric Thor
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Marine Resources Foundation 2010
SeriesMarine Resource Economics
Subjects
bird watching
Contingent valuation
discrete choice
Environmental Economics and Policy
Public Economics
Research Methods
Statistical Methods
use value
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Summary:In this article we estimate the recreational use value of household trips to view shorebirds during the annual horseshoe crab/shorebird migration on the Delaware Bay. We use contingent valuation to estimate the value of day and overnight trips separately and use a discrete choice question followed by a payment-card question to generate our valuation data. Our best estimates for the value of a day trip are about $66–$90/household and for an overnight trip about $200–$425/household (2008$). Our data are from the 2008 season, and our average household size is 1.66. For some context, estimates from four other studies report values that vary from $63/trip/person to $442/trip/person. These studies vary in method and specific birding populations studied and mix day and overnight trips.