ORIGINAL PAPER The price of tolerance: wolf damage payments after recovery Adrian Treves Æ Randle L. Jurewicz Æ Lisa Naughton-Treves Æ David S. Wilcove Received: 13 November 2008 / Accepted: 5 July 2009 / Published online: 22 July 2009 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract The costs of wildlife conservation distribute unequally across society. Com- pensation can potentially redress inequities and raise local tolerance for endangered wildlife that damage property. However, the rules for payments generate controversy, particularly as costs mount and species recover. In Wisconsin (USA), gray wolf damage payments grew notably over 28 years and eventually undermined budgets for conserving other endangered species. We measured attitudes to compensation among 1,364 state residents, including those who voluntarily contributed funds and those likely to receive compensation, and we interviewed elected officials about the politics of payment rules. Most respondents endorsed compensation for wolf damages to livestock—even when wolves are no longer endangered—but opposed payments for wolf damage to hunting dogs on public land. Most donors opposed killing wolves and over one-fourth unconditionally rejected a wolf hunt. We predict the latter donors would stop contributing funds for compensation if the state were to implement a proposed wolf hunt. Controversy over payment rules reveals clashing values regarding wildlife between those receiving and those Co-authors arranged in alphabetical order. A. Treves (&) Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin, 30A Science Hall, 550 North Park St., Madison, WI 53706, USA e-mail: atreves@wisc.edu R. L. Jurewicz Bureau of Endangered Resources, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Madison, WI, USA L. Naughton-Treves Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA L. Naughton-Treves Center for Applied Biodiversity Science, Conservation International, Arlington, VA, USA D. S. Wilcove Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA D. S. Wilcove Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA 123 Biodivers Conserv (2009) 18:4003–4021 DOI 10.1007/s10531-009-9695-2