Optimal harvesting in the presence of predation: An age-structured modelling approach.

Predation of wildlife and livestock by large carnivores takes place within many ecological and institutional settings. In this paper, moose predation by wolves is studied within a Norwegian institutional setting where the landowners obtain the moose harvesting value and where the wolf population is strictly controlled by the wildlife authorities. An age-structured model consisting of four categories of the moose population (calves, yearlings and adult females and males) is formulated, and both maximum yield (MY) and maximum economic yield (MEY) harvesting are studied.