Sturgeon viewing as nature tourism: to what extent do participants value their viewing experiences and the resources upon which they depend?

Abstract

Fish viewing, a relatively new leisure activity, has nature tourism potential. We focused on sturgeon viewing in northeast Wisconsin to understand personal and experience characteristics, economic impacts, and sturgeon population values. The need for economic approaches, as used in this paper, was addressed for creating and supporting fish-viewing opportunities. In the spring of 2002, we intercepted viewers of a sturgeon spawning event, finding that they were similar to other nature tourism participants in terms of personal and experience characteristics. Most resided within 35 miles (56.33 km) of the viewing site and incurred expenditures only for auto fuel and restaurant meals. Viewers demonstrated a strong affinity for protecting the sturgeon population by supporting various management proposals for dealing with overharvest. Willingness-to-pay results help us to understand the use value of sturgeon viewing to participants as well as the underlying value of environmental resources that support viewing. This reduces the likelihood these resources will be converted to uses other than nature tourism. The estimated value to viewers of increasing regional sturgeon population levels by 10% exceeds $2 million over the resource asset lifetime. Overall, there is potential for other areas with watchable fish populations to attract additional economic impacts from both residents and non-residents.