Essays on feral swine: producer welfare effects and spatiotemporal management of feral swine
Date
2017
Authors
Holderieath, Jason, author
Pendell, Dustin, advisor
Hadrich, Joleen, advisor
Frasier, W. Marshall, committee member
Boone, Randall B., committee member
Shwiff, Stephanie A., committee member
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Abstract
Feral swine are known to cause damage to crops among other types of property damage. With a lack of economic welfare estimates of feral swine crop damages, the first essay of this dissertation addresses this gap in the literature by estimating the value of feral swine removal with respect to five crops in nine southern states. An equilibrium displacement model was used to assess the changes in price and quantity that would result from eliminating damage to corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, and peanuts in these nine states. Changes in price and quantity are then used to calculate the changes in producer and consumer welfare in both the short and long-run. Respectively, those net surplus gains are $142 million and $89 million. The second essay addresses the need for analysis in complex management questions. The essay serves as an advance in building an agent-based model for use in feral swine management and extending it by developing a method for passing optimal management information to the agent-based decision maker. This essay constructs an agent-based model for use in examining different imperfect, but reasonable, ways that decision makers could implement a marginal benefit to the removal of feral swine and a marginal cost of removal. This essay finds that the implementation of the marginal benefit to removal matters for the land managers. Further, the essay finds that the dynamics of the sounder and movements related to sounders matter to the land managers and society at large and encourages further research into that area.
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Subject
crop damage
feral swine
agent-based model
wild pigs
equilibrium displacement model