Optimal Stochastic Control in Continuous Time with Wiener Processes: General Results and Applications to Optimal Wildlife Management

We present a stochastic optimal control approach to wildlife management. The objective value is the present value of hunting and meat, reduced by the present value of the costs of plant damages and traffic accidents caused by the wildlife population. First, general optimal control functions and value functions are derived. Then, numerically specified optimal control functions and value functions of relevance to moose management in Sweden are calculated and presented.