Externa kostnader för viltolyckor

Sammanfattning: The objective of this paper is to estimate monetary and non-monetary costs for the huntercaused by deer-vehicle collisions in Sweden. These costs include losses in hunting value as wellas time and money efforts related to the handling of wildlife casualties. The calculations arebased on available statistics from 2004 on deer-vehicle collisions involving moose, deer, roedeerand wild boar and on telephone interviews with hunters involved in the tracking of injuredanimals. Altogether, the annual loss in hunting value for moose was assessed to approximately30 million SEK based on the 2004 accident statistics. For roe-deer and fallow deer, thecorresponding figure was approximately 56 million SEK and 1.2 million SEK, while wild boaraccounted for 1.3 million SEK, respectively. The total annual loss for these game speciescombined was thus 90 million SEK. According to the interviews, more than 50 000 workinghours were spent on tracking wounded or dead moose, roe-deer, deer, and wild boar during2004. If provided a low standard salary of 200 SEK per hour, this time spend would sum up to atotal cost of additional 2.4 million SEK. The economical compensation to the hunters is,restricted by Swedish law, and a salary is only given for accidents involving moose and deer butnot for roe-deer and wild boar (2004). Tracking time spent on roe deer and wild boar is notcompensated by the government. Every year, a large proportion of accidents is not reported tothe police. A calculation with an estimate of the unreported fraction included, gives a total lossof hunting value of 143.1 million SEK. The loss of hunting value and the cost for trackinginjured wildlife is assumed at a total of 145.5 million SEK. Altogether, these costs increase theofficial estimates of the direct socio-economic costs of wildlife vehicle collisions byapproximately 10-15%.