Summary

Description

The purpose of this study is to develop a tool to help decision makers incorporate the wide range of stakeholder preferences for managing bison and elk at the National Elk Refuge and Grand Teton National Park and to show stakeholders how their preferences were included in the decision making process. We integrated concepts from decision analysis, political and institutional analysis, and public choice economics into a single, comprehensive approach called Disparate Stakeholder Management DSM. The objective of developing the DSM approach is to help decision makers better describe, measure, communicate, and resolve management issues with disparate stakeholders. We demonstrate the DSM approach on elk and bison management and show how knowing about stakeholder preferences can increase satisfaction overall for stakeholders, even when they hold very different view.