Anglers' responses to bait certification regulations: the case of virus-free bait demand

Abstract

The threat of viral haemorrhagic septicaemia (VHS) to the sport fish of the Great Lakes region has caused the state of Michigan to regulate some types of fishing bait that could spread the disease. Given large-scale fish kills from VHS are uncertain and regulation costly, it is important to consider the knowledge level of anglers and their estimated benefits from these regulations. About 75% of anglers self-reported being at least somewhat familiar with VHS and VHS regulations, and agreeing that VHS is a serious threat to the health of Great Lakes’ fish populations. Demand for a popular baitfish susceptible to VHS, emerald shiners, was estimated using a contingent valuation method survey. The results suggest increased likelihood of purchase and mean willingness to pay point estimate premiums between 15% and 29% for certified bait. The inclusion of an educational piece on VHS and regulations in our survey did not lead to significant demand differences from those who did not receive the extra information. These results may help regulators efficiently allocate funding for the prevention of spreading VHS and allow bait shops to understand better the value of certified bait.

Keywords:

• viral haemorrhagic septicaemia
• bait
• invasive species
• willingness to pay
• contingent valuation method
• environmental attribute

Acknowledgements

We give thanks to Gary Whelan for verifying the accuracy of our VHS education materials and to the MI DNR for publicising our survey. We thank two anonymous referees for very helpful comments that greatly improved the manuscript.

Funding

This project was funded by a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research, NOAA-CSCOR [grant number NA10NOS4780218]. This is publication #2014-21 from the Lake Erie Research Center.

Notes

1. The open-ended usage question was kept as well, such that stratifying the sample by low, average, and high usage to test for result differences was possible. See footnote 7 for results.

2. The data-set is available at http://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.827695.

3. Note for the statistical models considered the mean is always equal to the median.

4. Two key variables were determined and added to separate regressions to test for any affects, high-income respondents, and those who indicated they would not want to learn more about VHS and VHS regulations. Similar confidence interval results were obtained when adding them into the regressions to control for their affects.

5. Those results are briefly discussed in footnote 7.

6. There is a small loss in goodness of fit as measured by AIC by switching to this model. Therefore, the model with EC as the baseline is presented in Table 3.

7. Based on the open-ended usage question, it was determined that 20 dozen was the modal response, 24% of subjects used 20 dozen annually. Additionally, 50% of users purchased between 10 and 30 dozen per year. The goal of picking a fixed quantity that most anglers could relate to seems to have been met. As a robustness check, the sample was split three ways according to usage: less than 10 dozen, 10–30 dozen, and more than 30 dozen. The bivariate probit models were designed to compare to that presented in Table 3 with EC as the baseline. The average-use group (n = 214) had very similar results to the full sample (n = 423). The low-use group (n = 140) results indicated no treatment effects in the first equation and a constant negative effect from the ENC treatment in the second equation. Other significant variables included would not like to learn more (WouldNot), high income (HighInc), and VHS-free locations (LocVHSF) with the same signs as previous results. The high-use group (n = 64) had a small sample size, and only the constant and bid variables were significant.

8. Keep in mind that these changes and percentages are based on differences of the mean point estimates, not statistical differences from the confidence intervals.