Economic valuation of the cold water trout fisheries in the eastern Sierra region of Mono County, California, under current and hypothetical management plans

This study applies the Hypothetical Travel Cost Method (HTCM) to provide an economic valuation of the cold water fisheries in the eastern Sierra region of Mono County, California, under present and hypothetical management scenarios. The HTCM is identical to the Travel Cost Method when observing historical data. However, the HTCM also uses hypothetical responses to measure how resource users would change their behavior based on changes of the management of the resource. Using travel cost as a price variable and visits as a quantity variable, demand curves for recreational sport fishing in Mono County are estimated and used to determine consumer surplus values for the 1997 fishing season under the status quo and changes that would have resulted from doubling the stocking effort, doubling the take limit, and reducing the take limit to three fish per day. Only a doubling of the stocking effort would have resulted in an increase in consumer surplus and only if residents of Mono County are excluded from the sample.