Cattle producers' economic incentives for preventing bovine brucellosis under uncertainty.

Cattle in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem occasionally contract bovine brucellosis from free-ranging elk and bison. Cattle producers use a variety of brucellosis prevention activities to reduce their herds' risk of contracting brucellosis, such as: (1) having state agency personnel haze elk off private land, (2) fencing haystacks, (3) administering adult booster vaccination, (4) spaying heifers, (5) altering the winter-feeding schedule of cattle, (6) hiring riders to prevent cattle-elk commingling, and (7) delaying grazing on high-risk allotments. Their brucellosis prevention decisions are complicated, however, by several sources of uncertainty, including the following: a cattle herd's baseline risk of contracting brucellosis, the inherent randomness of brucellosis outbreaks, the cost of implementing prevention activities, and the activities' effectiveness.