The current wolf management in Norway has limited support in the areas where wolves occur. This is due to several factors, including negative economic impacts that landowners apparently suffer. Previous studies have shown that establishment of wolves can reduce moose populations, and thereby may reduce revenues from moose hunting. Here we want to investigate indirect effects that wolves may have on revenue from small game hunting. The proposed mechanism is that wolves deter hunters from hunting with dogs within or adjacent to wolf territories because of a fear of the dogs being killed by wolves. It is also likely that revenues of landowners would be lowest in the vicinity of territories where dogs have been killed by wolves, when compared with territory of wolves that have not killed dogs. By contacting landowners and landowner associations in a gradient with increasing distance to wolf territories, we will investigate the potential economic costs that wolves may be having, how far these costs may extend from wolf territories, and if the potential impacts differ between territories where dogs have been and have not been killed. We expect the strongest negative relationship between distance to wolf territories that have killed dogs, and the relative decline in landowner revenues from small game hunting.
