Benefits of Wildlife

Services

The Wildlife Services (WS) program, part of the U.S.

Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health

Inspection Service (APHIS), helps alleviate wildlife

damage to agricultural, urban, and natural resources.

WS also addresses wildlife threats to public health

and safety and protects endangered and threatened

species from predators.

Funding of WS

WS receives Federal funds to conduct its work;

however, cost sharing is an integral part of the WS

program. When other Federal or State agencies,

counties, or private organizations request assistance

from WS, they become cooperators and contribute

money to carry out the work. In some States, specific WS activities are completely funded by cooperators.

Prevention of Damage

The most challenging task in determining the

savings resulting from WS activities is predicting how

much more damage animals would have caused if

control methods had not been used. There is no 

single cost-benefit ratio for WS activities because

they vary so much from one circumstance to the

next. For any given damage situation, some control

methods would be more cost effective than others,

but cost is only one of many variables considered in

choosing control strategies. Other criteria include the

nature of the damage problems, practicality of control

measures, environmental, social, or political considerations, and regulatory constraints. The environmental protection afforded by the National

Environmental Policy Act, the Federal Insecticide,

Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, the Endangered

Species Act, and other regulatory statutes has resulted in significant benefits to our environment but has

also increased the cost of wildlife damage control.

Effective WS Projects

WS has many effective projects. Here are a few

examples of how the program successfully manages

wildlife damage.

• A farmer in Washington requested WS 

assistance after thousands of Canada geese 

congregated on his 43-acre field of carrots and 

began eating his crop, which had a potential 

market value of more than $7,000 an acre. WS 

biologists recommended the use of noise-making

devices and other scare tactics. These methods 

were successful in frightening the geese and 

keeping them out of his field.

• A mountain lion that killed a dog and attacked 

another dog and a mule in Colorado was 

captured by a WS specialist and officials from the

Colorado Division of Wildlife. The lion was 

released unharmed in a remote site about 165 

miles from the community where the attacks 

occurred.

• A beaver-control project conducted by WS 

employees in Mississippi cost about $11,000 and

saved an estimated $198,600 in timber 

resources. Another such project in Kentucky and

Tennessee cost about $55,000 during an 18-

month period and saved an estimated $1.5 

million in timber resources in those States.

• From a coyote predation study conducted for 3 

years on an 8,000 acre sheep ranch in Montana, 

U.S. Department of Interior researchers found 

that a significant reduction in sheep losses 

occurred when predators were controlled. During

the first 2 years of the study, coyote damage was 

not controlled, and coyotes killed an average of 

404 sheep each year. During the third year, 

predators were removed on the ranch and within 

a 1-mile buffer zone. Damage control efforts cut 

the loss to 227 sheep—a 44 percent reduction in 

deaths from predation.

• Researchers analyzed data from the Idaho WS 

program in 1995 and found a benefit-to-cost ratio

of 3 to 1 regarding efforts to protect sheep in 

southern Idaho. In other words, $3 worth of 

sheep were saved for every $1 spent on efforts 

to protect them. A similar benefit-to-cost ratio 

was found in a 3-year study conducted by the 

Berryman Institute at Utah State University.

Factsheet

Wildlife Services January 2002

APHIS
Indirect Costs and Nonmonetary Benefits

Indirect costs associated with wildlife damage are

not always taken into consideration in standard costeffectiveness studies of the WS program. For 

example, in areas where sheep or goats are free to

roam open rangeland, high lamb and kid predation

losses may mandate the grazing of cattle instead.

Many benefits of WS cannot be measured 

monetarily. To help protect human lives, WS 

employees routinely train and assist airport officials

on techniques to reduce collisions between wildlife

and aircraft. WS projects also ensure protection of

human health by removing animals that harbor 

diseases transmissible to people, such as rabies and

histoplasmosis. In addition, WS helps protect many

threatened or endangered species from predation,

including the California least tern and light-footed

clapper rail, the San Joaquin kit fox, the Aleutian

Canada goose, the Louisiana pearlshell (mussel), and

two species of endangered sea turtles.

Additional Information

You may obtain more information about WS from

any State APHIS, WS office. For the address and

telephone number of the office in your area, call the

WS Operational Support Staff at (301) 734–7921.

You can also find information on WS programs by visiting our Web site at http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ws.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination

in all its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national

origin, sex, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, or marital or family status. (Not all prohibited bases apply to

all programs.) Persons with disabilities who require alternative

means for communication of program information (Braille, large

print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA’s TARGET Center at

(202) 720–2600 (voice and TDD).

To file a complaint of discrimination, write USDA, Director, Office of

Civil Rights, Room 326–W, Whitten Building, 1400 Independence

Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20250–9410 or call (202) 720–5964

(voice and TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity provider and

employer.

United States Department of Agriculture • Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service • Safeguarding American Agriculture