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On the tragedy of the commons: When predation and livestock loss may improve the economic lot of herders

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Abstract

This paper studies the practice of semi-domestic reindeer (Rangifer t. tarandus) herding in Finnmark county in northern Norway. In this area, the Saami reindeer herders compete for space and grazing areas and keep large herds, while at the same time, the reindeer population is heavily exposed to carnivore predation by the lynx (Lynx lynx), the wolverine (Gulo gulo), and the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos). It is demonstrated that predation actually may improve the economic lot of livestock holders in this unmanaged local common setting. There are ecological as well as economic reasons as to why this happens. The ecological reason is that predation compensates for natural mortality; that is, increased predation reduces natural mortality, indicating that the net loss due to predation actually may be quite small. When predation reduces livestock density, the feeding conditions of the animals will improve, resulting in increased livestock weight and higher per animal slaughter value. At the same time, a smaller stock reduces the operating costs of the herders.

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Source: http://www.reindrift.no and http://www.rovbase.no

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Notes

  1. Because of the conflicts between carnivores and livestock holding (and especially sheep farming), the term ‘sustainable’ carnivore populations has widely different contents among different stakeholders (see, e.g., Ekspertutvalget 2011).

  2. In reality, there is a spring and summer mortality, especially for calves (Bårdsen et al. 2010), and predation and natural mortality generally take place simultaneously. However, by sequencing the events over the annual cycle, the model becomes analytically and numerically traceable. We have also studied the model when predation takes place before natural mortality. This causes a change in the distribution of losses from natural mortality to predation mortality, but has a negligible impact on the remaining results, as long as (slaughter) weights, and hence, the fertility rate and natural survival rates, depend on the autumn stock size.

  3. See also e.g., Nilsen et al. (2005) and Boman et al. (2003) for related discussions in other ecological settings in Scandinavia.

  4. Including compensation will obviously increase the profitability of the scenarios where predation is present. Compensation may also influence the behavior of the herders. See Skonhoft (2016) for an analysis of carnivore conservation, predation, and sheep farming.

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Correspondence to Anders Skonhoft.

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Skonhoft, A., Johannesen, A.B. & Olaussen, J.O. On the tragedy of the commons: When predation and livestock loss may improve the economic lot of herders. Ambio 46, 644–654 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-017-0910-1

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