We review a wide selection of published papers that rely on stated preference methods to reveal the tradeoffs that people are willing to make to protect either individual wild bird species, categories of species (guilds), or the habitats upon which these species rely. We focus on the features of these studies that make them more or less suitable for 'benefits-function transfer,' where the policy-related usefulness of the original research can be multiplied by transferring the estimated models to predict benefits associated with other types of wild birds in other regions.
The survey instrument for this stated-preference choice experiment includes enough abundance information about individual species of regionally common backyard birds to permit the calculation of a variety of alternative biodiversity measures. The choice tasks in our choice experiment each specifically describe the consequences of the policy for five of the top 25 backyard bird species in the respondent's region, as well as the average effects on all other common backyard species in the area.
Members of Cornell University's eBird project report bird sitings at geo-coded destinations. With origin information, we can infer the value to this group of biodiversity in bird species by observing how much more in travel costs they are willing to incur to gain opportunities to see more diverse populations of birds.
Members of Cornell University's eBird project report bird sitings at geo-coded destinations. With origin information, we can infer the value to this group of biodiversity in bird species by observing how much more in travel costs they are willing to incur to gain opportunities to see more diverse populations of birds.