This study explored the economic aspects of spring turkey hunting in Virginia. Because spring turkey hu nting is a nonmarket good, a market price does not exist for it. Data on hunters' expenditures on equipment and licenses is useful but does not represent the total economic value of the resource. The total economic value includes the hunters' willingness to pay above the expenditures they currently make. This value is called the net willingness to payor consumer surplus. It can be derived through several methods. In this study, the travel cost method (TCM) and the contingent valuation method (CVM) were used to derive this value. Using the TCM, the net economic value of spring turkey hunting in Virginia was estimated at $9.1 million. This translated into an average value of $166.00 per trip. The contingent valuation method estimated the value per trip at $7.71. This value was extremely low due to problems with the procedures used. It is, at best, a lower bound estimate of the net willingness to pay per trip. The TCM values are more appropriate to use because they are based on hunters' actual behavior. The TCM, unlike the CVM, derives an actual demand curve which allows the estimation of total net economic values. / Master of Science

Most of the hunting opportunities in Virginia are on private land, and their continued existence is threatened by shrinking wildlife habitat and increasingly restricted public access to remaining wildlife habitat. The availability of land for hunting and reasons landowners restrict access to their land were investigated in four counties in piedmont Virginia. Landowners were surveyed with a mailed questionnaire. The typical respondent was a 55 year old male with a high school education, who was raised in the country, and did some farming and hunting. While about half the respondents posted their land, 90 percent allowed some hunting. Bad experiences with hunters were common, and usually involved trespassing or property damage. Attitudes toward hunters and hunting were generally favorable, but road hunting and non-local hunters met with disapproval. Respondents rated existence and aesthetic values of wildlife much higher than hunting and food values. A regression model of the determinants of access control had low predictive power. The study did find that attitudes towards hunter and road hunting were the best predictors of access control for most respondents, while attitude toward hunting was the best predictor for those who completely prohibited hunting. Landowners’ distrust of non-local hunters and widespread limitation of access to local residents emphasize the need to increase public hunting opportunities near urban areas through incentives to landowners. Altering landowners’ attitudes toward hunters, not toward hunting, seems to be the best way to increase access in general. A more favorable image of hunters can be achieved by improving hunter behavior through effective control of road hunting and promoting hunting ethics. Instilling an ethic of sportsmanship in all hunters is a difficult challenge, but it is the only major solution to landowner-hunter conflicts. / Master of Science

This study, concerned with evaluation of Cottontail Rabbit management techniques, was conducted at Camp Pickett, Virginia, a 47,000-acre deactivated military reservation. This public hunting area is managed cooperatively by the U. S. Second Army and the Virginia Commission of Game and Inland Fisheries. Cottontail Rabbit population fluctuations were measured by roadside counts during the summer months. It was found that a precipitous drop in the rabbit population occurred in mid-August. The suspected etiology of this population drop was disease, although no research data were collected to substantiate this theory. Land-cultural treatments were calculated by means of pellet counts and live-trapping. The treatments extant on Camp Pickett are installation of annual game bird mix and clover-small grain food patches, seeding of firelanes in fescue and clover-fescue combination, burning and mowing. Summer pellet counts showed the rabbit to be utilizing the annual mix food patches more than any other treatment type. The clover-small grain food patch was next in preference. Utilization of the remaining treatment types, which were mostly located in forested area, was rather low. Fall trapping data revealed a switch to the clover-small grain management unit, with the annual mix running second. Utilization of the other treatment types was again low. Winter trapping data showed an even greater preference for the clover-small grain than was found in the fall. Spring pellet count data resembled that obtained in the previous summer, with the exception of the burned areas, which received substantial usage by the rabbit. Differences between spring pellet count data and winter trapping data are believed due to an accumulation of older pellets. A pellet durability study showed winter loss of pellets to be minimal. An attempt to evaluate various population estimation formulae by live-trapping a known cottontail population in a five-acre enclosure met with failure when deer knocked down the fence, hunters poached, and rabbits were lost from various other causes, often unknown. A record was kept of all parasites, disease and injury encountered in the rabbit population. Forty-two per cent of all rabbits handled either were or presented evidence of having been infested with bot fly larvae. An incidence of 2.2 per cent of Shope's fibroma was found. A record was kept of all cottontail deaths known to have been caused by motor vehicles. The number of deaths per mile of highway traveled became progressively higher through the months of July to April, even though the rabbit population became progressively lower. This increasing highway kill was apparently due to the increased movement required of the rabbit in the winter months when food and cover are scarce, and the increased movement that occurs among the rabbit population when the spring breeding season arrives. / Master of Science