| Abstract: | This paper examines dynamically optimal trapping strategies for a resident beaver population causing damage to privately-held timber land. An extreme elimination strategy does not account for the dispersive behavior of neighboring beaver populations in filling the resulting environmental vacuum. This negative externality is accounted for by embedding an ecological model of small-mammal dispersive dynamics into an optimization framework minimizing the sum of discounted timber damage and trapping costs. The optimal balance that timber producers must strike between the benefits of leaving sufficient resident numbers to deter foreign invasions and the costs of timber damage caused by these “protectors” is characterized. |
