of resident hunters reported bagging an elk on their trip. 

 Statewide the success rate in recent years for elk hunters is 

 approximately 19%, This suggests that a significant proportion 

 of responding resident hunters were on trips where elk hunting 

 was at least as important as deer hunting. As was reported 

 previously, over 27% of guided hunters in the sample bagged elk 

 on their trip. This indicates that a majority of these hunters 

 were being primarily guided for elk. 



Even if we conclude that a large number of elk hunters were 

 included in the deer survey responses, interpretation of the 

 magnitudes of the improved conditions values remains problematic. 

 This conclusion, however, would make possible an explanation 

 which has intuitive appeal, even though it lacks strict 

 quantitative rigor. If the net economic values for the current 

 trip estimation were influenced by elk hunters the improved 

 condition questions (which dealt exclusively with improvements in 

 deer hunting conditions) might have been viewed as relatively 

 unimportant in the context of their elk hunting trip. The values 

 which they placed on these improvements might therefore have been 

 discounted. With hindsight, it would have been advisable to ask 

 respondents what species was the primary objective of their hunt. 



Analysis of Values Across Regions 



In addition to the models estimated for the entire state and for 

 the four hunter subgroups, models were estimated for each of the 

 seven DFWP administrative regions. Table 14 shows that there is 

 relative stability of values across the regions for the four CVM 

 questions. Indeed, an analysis of confidence intervals 

 calculated for the nonparametric mean show that no statistical 

 difference between regions exists at the 95% level of confidence. 

 As was the case for the entire sample and for the hunter subgroup 

 samples the net economic values for the three improved conditions 

 questions were consistently ranked, but consistently lower than 

 for the current conditions question. 



While the values for the seven regions still show the disparity 

 between the current trip values and the improved conditions 

 values that was discussed above, they also provide support for 

 the magnitudes of the values as applied to deer hunting. Of 

 particular interest are the values for regions 6 and 7. In 1989 

 the total elk harvest for regions 6 and 7 were 299 and 40, 

 respectively. With such a low harvest of elk, it seems certain 

 that "elk hunter bias" did not play a role in inflating the net 

 economic values of deer hunting from these regions. Region 7, 

 with the lowest incidence of elk hunting, nevertheless, shows the 

 highest values for the current trip question. 



28 



