How much does the musky program cost?
Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 8:49 am
Tmusky supplied some data where she layed out the cost of stocking musky vs trout.
As far as the criticism of the tiger program being expensive, it may be the least expensive fish program by WDFW per hour of fishing recreation generated. On Mayfield from 1992-1998, assuming that trout cost $3/lb and tigers $10/lb, an average of $23,800 was spent annually planting trout while $1,900 was spent on tigers. Trout generated 3,870 hours of recreation while tigers generated 3,058 hours of recreation. Cost per hour of recreation was $6.15 for trout and $0.62 for tigers, making tigers 10 times a greater return on investment than trout.
Seems with that kind of return on investment, a few other waters should be considered for tiger introduction?
I'm curious if those numbers include the cost of things like:
Man hours for studing diets, travel etc
Tagging
Administration cost
I believe that due to the unknown threat to other fish species like migratory salmon that it is mandatory to study and document their impact in WA waters. Shouldn't the cost for doing that be included in the "Cost per hour of recreation"?
Also, how do you come up with a number for; "Hours of recreation"? If we consider that lakes like Tapps have fewer than 500 hunderd legal fish for over 2000 acres after stocking thousands of fish in the lake, then wouldn't the "Cost per fish" be considerably higher than some other fisheries?
I don't believe that it is really as simple as Tmusky makes it sound, there are many other factors to consider. Like how many actual trout anglers are buying licenses and are on the water fishing compared to musky anglers. I'm sure the angler count must be much higher, therefore it seems to be reasonable to conclude that trout generate more "Income per fish" than a Musky do.
As far as the criticism of the tiger program being expensive, it may be the least expensive fish program by WDFW per hour of fishing recreation generated. On Mayfield from 1992-1998, assuming that trout cost $3/lb and tigers $10/lb, an average of $23,800 was spent annually planting trout while $1,900 was spent on tigers. Trout generated 3,870 hours of recreation while tigers generated 3,058 hours of recreation. Cost per hour of recreation was $6.15 for trout and $0.62 for tigers, making tigers 10 times a greater return on investment than trout.
Seems with that kind of return on investment, a few other waters should be considered for tiger introduction?
I'm curious if those numbers include the cost of things like:
Man hours for studing diets, travel etc
Tagging
Administration cost
I believe that due to the unknown threat to other fish species like migratory salmon that it is mandatory to study and document their impact in WA waters. Shouldn't the cost for doing that be included in the "Cost per hour of recreation"?
Also, how do you come up with a number for; "Hours of recreation"? If we consider that lakes like Tapps have fewer than 500 hunderd legal fish for over 2000 acres after stocking thousands of fish in the lake, then wouldn't the "Cost per fish" be considerably higher than some other fisheries?
I don't believe that it is really as simple as Tmusky makes it sound, there are many other factors to consider. Like how many actual trout anglers are buying licenses and are on the water fishing compared to musky anglers. I'm sure the angler count must be much higher, therefore it seems to be reasonable to conclude that trout generate more "Income per fish" than a Musky do.