Bird Board
Economic impact of Variegated Flycatcher
I thought I'd have a little fun and calculate the economic impact of the Variegated Flycatcher. These are really conservative numbers.
Assume 300 people saw the bird.
75 flew in at average fare $400, with about 10% of that going to the local community (airport workers, etc). $30,000. $3,000 local.
100 stayed in hotels average $100 per night $10,000
Half stay a second night. Add $5,000
Ten percent stay longer. Add $2,000.
75 rent local cars at $50 per day. $3750
300 people eat at $20 per day (even locals probably buy some bottled water and a sandwich) $6,000
150 people buy gas at $20 a fill $3000.
This comes to a total of about $60,000 with half of that spent locally. Not exactly a Madam Gaga concert, but not too bad for a little bird.
What are your numbers?
Comments
Steve--The "flycatcher delusion" is a well known phenomenon to psychologists, and is well documented in the scientific literature. It is a sister event to other similar mass hysterias, the last newsworthy local event I can recall being the loggerhead kingbird hysteria of 2007.Of course, following your train thought, you could probably include some of the following calculations:
average birder age : 65
likelihood of death, injury or accident from any cause for any of the 300 birders during any 2 day period: 1 -2% (random guess--might be higher??)
funeral and body transport costs, hospital and doctor costs--????
psychological counseling for birders who dipped on the bird--$250 /hr(none so far, I guess, but others will likely straggle in too late for a look).
cost of souvenir t shirts and certificates of participation-????
see my 2007 post about similar aspects of the kingbird phenomenon :
http://bird-board-archives.s3-website-us-east1.amazonaws.com/messages/14750.html
So you raise a good point, but as you can see the financial consequences go far beyond the items you've enumerated. As for me, I didn't go to see either bird...I am waiting for an ivory billed woodpecker event here, like they had elsewhere a few years ago.....
With those numbers I should have put more thought after the first day to my Lemonade/coffee stand with T-shirts mugs etc. I could have supported 1-2 pelagics for myself next year. lol steven
Corrected link: still my best post ever..
http://bird-board-archives.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/messages/14750.html
Leave a Comment