Pencil-and-Paper Jury-Pool Survey

Morbidity and quality-of-life considerations may be particularly important to the task of valuing non-fatal harm to wildlife in the wake of an environmental disaster. We argue that the other species morbidity-reduction component of WTP should be calculated net of any "outrage" component associated with the cause of the harm. This net WTP is likely to be correlated with the premium that people are willing to pay for chicken products from birds for which the quality-of-life has been enhanced by improved animal welfare measures.

One instance of the pencil-and-paper survey involving choice experiments concerning humanely raised meats. This project had its beginnings as senior thesis for Claire Tonry, in the University of Oregon's Program in Environmental Studies. Each respondent is presented with six choice tasks concerning three types of grocery items (chicken breasts, top sirloin beef steak, and ground beef) from animals raised in different ways. In each case, the respondent (in their role as a consumer) is asked to choose between conventionally raised, free-range, and humanely raised animals.