CIBW_SS_112410rev Part A rev2

SUPPORTING STATEMENT
COOK INLET BELUGA WHALE PROTECTION PRETEST ECONOMIC SURVEY
OMB CONTROL NO. 0648-XXXX

A.

JUSTIFICATION

1. Explain the circumstances that make the collection of information necessary.
The population of Cook Inlet beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas), found in the Cook Inlet of
Alaska, is one of five distinct population segments (DPSs) in United States (U.S.) waters. It was
listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) on October 22, 2008 (73 FR
62919). It is also a depleted species under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) of 1972
(16 U.S.C. 1362). The public benefits associated with the results of protection actions on the
Cook Inlet beluga whale (CIBW), such as population increases, are primarily the result of the
non-consumptive value people attribute to such protection (e.g., active use values associated with
being able to view beluga whales and passive use values unrelated to direct human use). Little is
known about these values, yet such information is needed for decision makers to more fully
understand the trade-offs involved in choosing among potential protection alternatives and to
complement other information available about the costs, benefits, and impacts of protection
alternatives. A general population survey is needed that will collect information that provide
insights into public values for protection of CIBWs and the impacts of that protection.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is the primary agency responsible for the
protection of marine mammals, including Cook Inlet beluga whales. Multiple management
actions will be considered by NMFS in its efforts to protect and aid the recovery of the CIBW
DPS. In deciding between management actions, policy makers must balance the ESA and
MMPA goals of protecting CIBWs from further declines with economic activities and
development in the Cook Inlet region. Cook Inlet beluga whale protection actions may be subject
to Executive Order 12866 (58 FR 51735), which requires regulatory agencies to consider costs
and benefits in deciding among alternative management actions.
This information collection request is for a pretest that precedes the full survey implementation
that is anticipated to be implemented to measure public preferences for Cook Inlet beluga whale
protection. The pretest will provide researchers with feedback to evaluate the survey instrument.
In particular, the pretest will gather a sufficient number of responses to evaluate the information
presentation, reliability, internal consistency, response variability, and other properties of a
newly developed survey. Results from these activities will be used to make improvements to the
survey instrument and survey administration approach. Further development of the survey cannot
proceed without the pretest.

2. Explain how, by whom, how frequently, and for what purpose the information will be
used. If the information collected will be disseminated to the public or used to support
information that will be disseminated to the public, then explain how the collection
complies with all applicable Information Quality Guidelines.
The pretest consists of implementing a small-scale mail survey on a sample of United States
(U.S.) households. We will mail questionnaires to members of the sample; in addition, we will
send follow-up mailings to encourage response. Among the follow-up efforts will be a telephone
contact with those sample households for whom we have telephone numbers. We will try to
obtain some survey information during this telephone follow-up. The survey administration
protocols and procedures for assessing non-response behavior are anticipated to be used in the
full implementation, so their performance in the pretest will be used to evaluate them.
Mail Questionnaire
Two principal types of information will be gathered from the pretest mail survey—responses to
survey questions and information about the survey administration. Survey responses gathered
from the pretest mail questionnaire include information about the following:
a. Public preferences regarding the protection of Cook Inlet beluga whales.
b. The factors that affect the public’s preferences for protecting Cook Inlet beluga whales,
such as the risk of extinction to the DPS, listing status, and protection costs.
c. Information on general attitudes toward protecting threatened and endangered species.
Stated preference response data collected through the pretest will be used by NMFS to gauge the
feasibility of the set of attributes and attribute levels being considered and to aid in developing
the experimental design for the final survey implementation. In the full implementation, these
data will be used by NMFS to estimate a preference function for explaining choices between
protection programs that differ in the extinction risk levels, ESA listing status, and costs. This
estimated function will provide NMFS with information on public preferences and values for
alternative Cook Inlet beluga whale protection programs, and what factors affect these values.
This information can then be compared with program costs and other impacts when evaluating
protection alternatives. Although the small sample size in the pretest will preclude statistically
robust results for this purpose, preliminary analysis of the pretest data will provide results
sufficient to aid in the experimental design and determine the feasibility of the set of attributes
and attribute levels being considered.
The pretest will also provide information about the survey implementation, particularly
indicators of response rates to the survey as a whole with different monetary pre-incentive
amounts and to individual questions and factors affecting response behavior. The survey
administration protocols will include contacting non-responding individuals via telephone,
encouraging them to respond, and if they refuse, asking a set of questions to assist in determining
whether there are differences between respondents and non-respondents. These processes are
described in more detail in Part B. The pretest affords the only opportunity to test the telephone
scripts and determine cooperation rates for the telephone follow-up efforts. Additionally, since
this is a new survey instrument involving a public good with low salience for the public at large,

1

overall response rates from the pretest are needed to determine the incentive amount that
maximizes response rates and the size of the initial sample to contact for the full implementation
that will ensure a sufficiently large number of completed surveys for analysis.
The following is a discussion of how particular questions in the mail questionnaire will be
ultimately used. Generally, the survey asks respondents for information regarding their
knowledge and opinions of Cook Inlet beluga whales, other endangered species, other seals and
sea lions, and potential goals and impacts of management options available to protect the
endangered population of Cook Inlet beluga whales, in addition to standard socio-demographic
information needed to classify respondents. It is divided into several sections.
Section 1: The Issue: Endangered Cook Inlet Beluga Whales
Prior to the first section, respondents are asked a general social issues question. To put the issue
of protecting threatened and endangered species in the context that there are many social issues
(each with costs), and thus to reduce survey “importance bias”, Q1 asks the respondent whether
less, about the same, or more should be done with respect to several other issues facing the U.S.
In addition to protection of threatened and endangered species, the set of issues listed includes
government efficiency, education, road and highway improvements, economic growth and jobs,
and air and water pollution.
The first section identifies the Cook Inlet beluga whale as a species protected under the
Endangered Species Act and presents information about the Endangered Species Act (ESA),
including definitions for “endangered” and “threatened” species, which are important to the
policy questions in the survey. Since the Cook Inlet beluga whale is protected as a DPS, not as a
distinct species, under the ESA, respondents are informed that the ESA also may protect a DPS.
The introductory material also presents a breakdown of how many species are protected under
the ESA to help place Cook Inlet beluga whales in context as one of many ESA-protected
species. Finally, the introduction identifies that the ESA requires reasonable actions be taken,
which begins to motivate the questions about alternative actions to consider. The section also
lists reasons people may care about threatened and endangered species and the types of costs that
result from protecting them.
•

Q2 asks how positive or negative the respondent’s reaction is when they think about the
Endangered Species Act. This simple question identifies people’s general feelings
toward endangered species protection. It provides an easy start to the process of thinking
about threatened and endangered species, and it sets a tone of neutrality by allowing
positive and negative reactions right from the start. In initial testing (and a past study),
responses to this question were good predictors of how respondents would answer the
stated preference questions.

•

Q3 asks respondents whether they are aware that the ESA protects distinct population
segments in addition to entire species. This question is used as a way to encourage
respondents to read and understand the information regarding the ESA and its protection
of DPSs in addition to entire species.

2

•

After providing some general reasons for and against protecting threatened and
endangered species (again providing a neutral perspective), Q4 addresses the importance
to the respondent of general protection of threatened and endangered species, and
whether protecting jobs is more or less important than threatened and endangered species
protection to the respondent. Responses to this question were also found to be correlated
with response patterns to stated choice questions in initial qualitative testing (i.e., focus
group).

To properly value Cook Inlet beluga whales, it is vital to accurately define the good and to
provide the context within which it exists to ensure that respondents fully understand what they
are to value. Part of the process of providing context for the valuation involves discussing the
species that may serve as substitutes in individual’s minds for Cook Inlet beluga whales. In
focus groups, a natural set of substitutes that people identified for Cook Inlet beluga whales is
other whale species.
This section provides a graphic of endangered whales residing in U.S. waters, with some
information about whether the entire species or only one or more DPSs are protected. This
graphic is useful for illustrating that the Cook Inlet beluga whale is one of several whale species
in the U.S. that are protected by the ESA.
•

Q5 is used to determine whether respondents have had prior experience observing
whales, and aids in encouraging respondents to review the information provided.

Section 2: Some Beluga Whale Facts
This brief section introduces several facts about beluga whales generally.
•

Like Q5, Q6 is intended to get respondents to begin thinking about beluga whales and
determine whether they are familiar with beluga whales prior to reading the survey.

Section 3: Beluga Whales in the U.S.
This brief section provides a map and table describing where the five beluga whale DPSs are,
what their population sizes are, and what the population trend is for each.
•

Q7 is another question intended to put the issue of Cook Inlet beluga whales in a larger
context (all beluga whales) and asks respondents whether they are concerned about the
DPSs that are declining given that other DPSs are stable or increasing.

Section 4: Cook Inlet Beluga Whales
This section describes how the Cook Inlet beluga whale DPS is different from the other DPSs,
where it is located, its ESA listing, the past and current threats to it, its population trend, and past
and present efforts to protect it, as well as the current estimated risk of extinction for the DPS
under current conditions. This and the next section define the baseline of current and expected

3

future conditions with current management programs, which is required for proper valuation of
alternative levels of protection.
•

Q8, which asks whether the respondent has ever lived in or visited areas where the Cook
Inlet beluga lives, is intended to get the individual to review the map that indicates where
the Western and Eastern stocks are and relate the map to their own experiences.

•

Respondents are asked how concerned they are about the Cook Inlet beluga whale in Q9.
This information serves dual purposes. First, it encourages the respondent to read and
understand what is occurring with the DPS, and second, provides information that can be
used to check for consistency of preferences with responses to stated preference
questions.

•

Q10 asks specifically about the risk of extinction information. It is intended to encourage
the respondent to read the information on extinction risk carefully and consider whether
the estimate is concerning from the respondent’s perspective.

Section 5: New Cook Inlet Beluga Whale Protection Actions
This section introduces the idea that more can be done to protect Cook Inlet beluga whales and
sets the stage for asking about specific protection alternatives in the stated preference questions.
In the section, protection actions that would help Cook Inlet beluga whales to recover are
described, the term “recover” is defined, and the costs of additional protection actions (payment
vehicle) are discussed in terms of the effects they would have on individual households.
•

Q11 asks respondents to what extent they agree with two statements, one indicating a
desire to help the Cook Inlet beluga whale recover, even if it costs more money; and the
other stating that the most effective protection actions should be used even if businesses
and individuals are negatively affected. The question serves the purpose of
acknowledging that there are costs to protecting Cook Inlet beluga whales and informing
the respondent about these costs. This is important for maintaining a neutral stance
regarding protection and minimizing information bias. Additionally, agreeing with the
first statement indicates a willingness to spend money to protect the DPS, while
disagreement suggests individuals may not choose costly programs to help the DPS.
Disagreement with the second statement provides a reason why individuals may not be
willing to spend additional money to protect Cook Inlet beluga whales.

Section 6: What Alternatives Do You Prefer?
This section contains the stated preference questions, which are in a choice experiment, or stated
choice, framework. The section begins with instructions for answering the questions and a
budget reminder. In addition, a “cheap talk” script (e.g., Cummings and Taylor [1999]) is
included to minimize potential hypothetical bias. The instructions and cheap talk script are
followed by four stated choice questions (Q12, Q13, Q14, and Q15) and follow-up questions
(Q16, Q17). The information from these questions will be used to estimate a Cook Inlet beluga
whale protection preference function.

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•

In each of the four choice questions (Q12 through Q15), respondents are confronted with
three alternatives that differ in what they do and how much they cost, the current Cook
Inlet beluga whale protection program (Alternative A), which is the status quo
alternative, and two others that do more and cost more, which are uniquely labeled
Alternatives B through I in the survey to encourage respondents to view the non-status
quo alternatives as distinct across choice questions. These alternatives are described by
their expected results with respect to the following attributes:
1. Population status in 50 years
2. Risk of extinction by the year 2110
3. Added household cost 1
Respondents are then asked to choose the alternative they most prefer, and which they
least prefer. The status quo is always the first option to make it easy for respondents to
select it (and reduce any unintended bias in selecting alternatives to do more and spend
more), and to allow rank ordering of non-status quo alternatives relative to the baseline
(Alternative A), which provides statistical efficiency gains over paired choices.

•

In Q16, respondents are asked to agree or disagree with several statements that are used
to help address several concerns about people’s responses, including whether respondents
feel it is their responsibility to pay for Cook Inlet beluga whale protection at all (potential
protest), whether respondents had enough information to make an informed choice (the
effect of uncertainty on values), whether respondents were paying just for Cook Inlet
beluga whales or if they believed other species were being protected by the alternatives
considered (potential embedding), whether respondents believed the federal government
could effectively manage the Cook Inlet beluga whale protection programs to bring about
the results being valued (potential protest), whether respondents feel they should not have
to pay more federal taxes for any reason (potential protest),whether the scientific
estimates of future extinction risk were believable to the respondent (potential protest), a
statement about whether the respondent felt qualified to choose between different
extinction risks (potential protest), and a statement indicating an unwillingness to pay if
there is any risk of extinction.

•

Q17 identifies how confident individuals are about their answers to the stated preference
questions. Respondents stating they are “not at all confident” in their answers may be
excluded from the estimation since these individuals, for whatever reason, are uncertain
that their answers reflect how they feel.

•

The final question (Q18) in the section is intended to gauge respondents’ general
environmental attitudes using questions from the New Ecological Paradigm, a series of
Likert scale questions that measure pro-environmental sentiments on several dimensions

1

In cognitive interviews, individuals were specifically asked in what form they believed they would be paying for
Cook Inlet beluga whale protection programs. The vast majority responded that the added cost in the choice
questions simply represents money out of their pocket, mostly in the form of federal taxes, but also from some
additional expenditures on seafood products.

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(Dunlap, van Liere, Mertig, and Jones, 2001). These questions have been used frequently
in numerous environmental surveys. An understanding of general environmental
attitudes may be helpful to explain responses to stated preference questions and enable
classification of respondents.

Section 7: About You and Your Household
This final section consists of eleven questions, Q19 through Q29, that collect information about
the respondent and the respondent’s household to be used as explanatory variables in the stated
preference model, for comparing the sample to the population (coverage or sampling bias), and
for comparing respondents to non-respondents (non-response bias). To the extent possible, the
questions and response categories parallel those used by the Census Bureau to allow the most
direct comparisons.
•

Socioeconomic, demographic, and classification information collected includes gender
(Q19), age (Q20), household size (Q21), employment status (Q22), membership in an
environmental or conservation program (Q23), recent fishing and hunting behavior
(Q24), educational attainment (Q25), household ownership status (Q26), ethnicity (Q27),
race (Q28), and income (Q29).

Telephone Follow-Up
Following the initial mailing and postcard reminder, we will contact non-respondents by
telephone to encourage them to complete the mail survey2 and to collect limited information
from those who decide not to participate in the mail survey at all. 3 The information provided by
these non-respondents can be compared with that from respondents to address issues concerning
non-response bias. Selected socioeconomic and demographic questions, along with a few key
attitudinal questions, are asked to enable conducting statistical tests in the full survey to
determine whether non-respondents differ from respondents with respect to these characteristics.
The attitudinal questions include versions of Q1 and Q4 from the mail questionnaire. Responses
to questions like these have been shown to be correlated to responses to stated preference
questions in earlier rounds of focus groups and cognitive interviews. This information can be
used to evaluate and adjust the results for potential non-response bias among sample members.
As explained in the preceding paragraphs, the information gathered has utility. The National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will retain control over the information and
safeguard it from improper access, modification, and destruction, consistent with NOAA
standards for confidentiality, privacy, and electronic information. See response to Question 10
of this Supporting Statement for more information on confidentiality and privacy. The
information collection is designed to yield data that meet all applicable information quality
guidelines. Although the information collected is not expected to be disseminated directly to the
public, results may be used in scientific, management, technical or general informational
2

Those needing a replacement survey will be mailed one following the telephone interview.
In the telephone follow-up, a limited amount of information may also be collected from those agreeing to return
the mail survey.
3

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publications. Should NOAA decide to disseminate the information, it will be subject to the
quality control measures and pre-dissemination review pursuant to Section 515 of Public Law
106-554.
3. Describe whether, and to what extent, the collection of information involves the use of
automated, electronic, mechanical, or other technological collection techniques or other
forms of information technology.
The pretest survey will not utilize any specialized information technology.
4. Describe efforts to identify duplication.
The economics literature was consulted extensively to identify studies that valued Cook Inlet
beluga whales. To date, there has not been any study that provides economic value information
for Cook Inlet beluga whales. However, a recent unpublished government study by Olar, et al.
(2007) valued the protection of beluga whales in the St. Lawrence Estuary in Canada, which is
classified as threatened under the Species at Risk Act (SARA) in Canada. The study uses stated
preference choice experiment data collected from a survey of Canadian households using an
Internet-enabled web panel that achieved a cooperation rate of 52%. Mean household
willingness to pay for improving the St. Lawrence Estuary beluga whale from its currently
threatened status to a special concern status was estimated to be $107 (Canadian dollars), with a
standard deviation of about $12. For a larger improvement, from threatened to not at risk, the
mean household WTP was estimated to be $122 (Canadian dollars) with a standard deviation of
about $17. While these results suggest a positive WTP for improving the status of beluga whales
in the St. Lawrence Estuary, the WTP is for Canadian households and does not speak to U.S.
households’ preferences and values.
Although there are no existing survey efforts to understand the public’s preferences and values
for protecting Cook Inlet beluga whales, there are numerous examples of studies conducted to
estimate the non-consumptive use value of other endangered species and marine mammals.
Examples include Bosetti and Pearce (2003), Langford, et al. (2001), Jakobsson and Dragun
(2001), Fredman (1995), Hagen, et al. (1992), among others. All these studies utilized
contingent valuation methods, as do the vast majority of species valuation studies. 4 As a result,
they are unable to fully analyze marginal values of attributes of the species protection. The
proposed study departs from most of the existing literature in its use of a stated choice
framework that allows marginal values of attributes of protection programs to be estimated. The
added information provided by this approach arms decision makers with better information about
how much the public would benefit from programs that lead to differing results, and thus
represents a flexible tool for management. A recent study by Lew, Layton, and Rowe (2010)
illustrates an application of this approach with respect to the valuation of protection for a U.S.
threatened and endangered species (the Steller sea lion).

4

See Loomis and White (1996) and Richardson and Loomis (2009) for summaries of the literature related to the
valuation of threatened and endangered species.

7

5. If the collection of information impacts small businesses or other small identities,
describe any methods used to minimize burden.
The collection does not involve small businesses or other small identities.
6. Describe the consequence to Federal program or policy activities if the collection is not
conducted or is conducted less frequently.
The pretest is necessary to assess whether the survey administration protocols and materials are
adequate for implementing the full survey that will gather data for estimating public values for
protecting Cook Inlet beluga whales. Without the pretest, there will be insufficient responses to
develop a reliable experimental design and to evaluate the information presentation, reliability,
internal consistency, response variability, and other properties of the survey. This is a critical
step needed to be confident that the questionnaire is functioning in the way in which it is
intended and can be successfully implemented and to evaluate the efficacy of the survey
implementation methods.
If the pretest collection (and hence full collection) is not conducted, NMFS will have to rely on
information about public values for other species to infer the value of protecting Cook Inlet
beluga whales using benefits transfer methods to consider along with other important
information in decisions about Cook Inlet beluga whale management alternatives.
7. Explain any special circumstances that would cause an information collection to be
conducted in a manner inconsistent with OMB guidelines.
The collection is consistent with OMB guidelines.
8. Provide information on the PRA Federal Register Notice that solicited public comments
on the information collection prior to this submission. Summarize the public comments
received in response to that notice and describe the actions taken by the agency in
response to those comments. Describe the efforts to consult with persons outside the
agency to obtain their views on the availability of data, frequency of collection, the
clarity of instructions and recordkeeping, disclosure, or reporting format (if any), and
on the data elements to be recorded, disclosed, or reported.
A Federal Register Notice published December 30, 2009 (74 FR 69062) solicited comments on
the information collection. No comments were received.
In addition, the pretest survey instrument presents the latest information on Cook Inlet beluga
whales, current population trends, alternative management options, and likely impacts of
management options. To ensure that the information is as accurate as possible, numerous Cook
Inlet beluga whale researchers and biologists have reviewed the survey instrument, including Dr.
Kaja Brix and Dr. Lew Queirolo of the NMFS Alaska Regional Office, and Dr. Kim Shelden and
Dr. Rod Hobbs of the National Marine Mammal Laboratory.

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9. Explain any decision to provide any payment or gift to respondents, other than
remuneration of contractors or grantees.
Inclusion of an incentive acts as a sign of goodwill on the part of the study sponsors and
encourages reciprocity of that goodwill by the respondent. Singer (2002) provides a
comprehensive review of the use of incentives in surveys. She notes that giving respondents a
small financial incentive (even a token amount) in the first mailing increases response rates in
mail-based surveys and are cost-effective. Such prepaid incentives are more effective than larger
promised incentives that are contingent on completion of the questionnaire. In tests conducted
by Lesser, et al (1999), including a $2 incentive in a mailing with four contact points was shown
to increase response rates by an additional 19 to 31 percentage points. Thus, even a small
upfront incentive typically is more cost effective than additional follow-up steps that are often
considered.
To encourage participation in the mail survey, one of three honorarium amounts will be provided
to the participants in the initial mailing. Statistical tests of differences in response rates
associated with upfront respondent incentives of $2, $5, and $10 conducted during a pilot pretest
implementation for the Steller sea lion economic survey (conducted under OMB Control No.:
0648-0511) indicated that a $10 incentive led to a statistically higher response rate compared to
the $2 and $5 treatments at the 1% and 10% levels, respectively. 5 The $10 incentive was the
only one to achieve a response rate over 50% (57% compared to 35% for $2 and 49% for $5),
which will be critical to make the results more defensible in the professional peer review
process. Actual implementation of the final version of that survey (conducted under OMB
Control No.: 0648-0554) using a $10 upfront incentive resulted in a response rate of over 70%
for an Alaska household sample and 60% for a rest of U.S. household sample. In this formal
pretest, we will test three incentive amounts to determine whether lower incentive amounts lead
to statistically similar response rates for this particular survey, which may allow for cost savings
in the full implementation over using a $10 incentive that proved effective in the Steller sea lion
economic survey. The upfront respondent incentives to be tested in this survey are $1, $5, and
$10, each of which will be provided to equal-sized samples (one-third of the overall sample).
There are several reasons why we believe inclusion of both a financial incentive and follow-up
contacts will be needed to reach desired response rates. First, the survey is about an unfamiliar
issue to many Americans. As such, the chance that respondents will not be motivated to
complete the survey is higher than for a survey on a more familiar subject (such as a survey of
licensed anglers about managing local fishing sites). Second, although every attempt is being
made to ensure the survey is easy to read, understand, and complete, the amount of information it
needs to present and the number of questions it needs to ask contribute to a 16 page survey
requiring more respondent attention than some surveys. For these reasons, and because of the
survey protocols followed and resulting response rates for the Steller sea lion economic survey
5

In fact, the statistical tests of differences between the response rates of the three treatments suggest that the $5
treatment and $10 response rates are significantly larger than the $2 treatment, with corresponding p-values of
0.00235 and 0.000281, respectively (for a one-sided statistical test with a null hypothesis of equal response rates).
In addition, the $10 treatment response rate is statistically different from the $5 treatment response rate at the 10%
level (p-value of 0.0711).

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that used a similar survey instrument, we expect both incentives and follow-up contacts will be
required to obtain a suitable response rate.
10. Describe any assurance of confidentiality provided to respondents and the basis for
assurance in statute, regulation, or agency policy.
In the cover letter accompanying each mailing, respondents will be told that their name and
address information will be kept separate from their responses and that only their responses will
be given to researchers. The cover page of the survey will also include the following statement
(not on attached survey’s cover page, but will be added with the OMB Control Number
following OMB approval):
‘Your name and address will be kept separate from your responses, and only responses will
be delivered to researchers for analysis.’
Following completion of the data collection, the survey firm will delete any information
identifying individuals (i.e., name and addresses) before any data file is delivered to NMFS or
any other participating researchers and agencies.
11. Provide additional justification for any questions of a sensitive nature, such as sexual
behavior and attitudes, religious beliefs, and other matters that are commonly
considered private.
There are no questions of a sensitive nature asked in the survey.
12. Provide estimates of the hour burden of the collection of information.
The pretest mail survey will be sent to a random sample of approximately 600 addresses. The
random sample will be purchased from a professional sampling vendor. 6 Based on previous
experience, up to 15% of these types of samples can be expected to be bad or unusable
addresses, which means the number of households receiving the survey will be approximately
510. We expect a final response rate of at least 60 percent (of the valid sample), leading to over
306 (= 510 × 0.60) responding households returning completed surveys (for the purpose of
computing burden hours, we assume no more than 320, 256 completed from the initial mailing
and postcard reminder and 64 completed following the second full mailing and contact via
phone). The cover letter will solicit the participation of an adult head of the household to
complete the survey. Our experience suggests respondents typically complete the survey in 20 to
25 minutes, so we assume 25 minutes in our computation of the potential burden hours. As a
result, those ultimately completing the survey are expected to contribute up to 133 hours to the
overall hour burden.
6

For the purpose of the pretest, the variations in samples from different vendors will have little influence on the
results with respect to the objectives of the pretest. During the review and pretest period, additional data will be
collected to evaluate vendors for the final survey. Candidate vendors for the pretest and final survey include
Acxiom, Experian, Survey Sampling Int’l, and Genesys, all of whom are high quality vendors with high population
coverage rates (85% to 95%), but which vary in the methods used to assemble lists and in the percent of their
population with telephone numbers.

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Following the initial mailing and postcard, we expect approximately 80% of expected completes
or 256 households to have returned completed surveys (based on results from Steller sea lion
economic survey). Households that have not responded after the initial mailing and postcard
reminder will be contacted by telephone and encouraged to complete and return the survey or
asked to answer a few questions if they indicate they will not be returning the survey. Thus, the
telephone follow-up serves the dual purpose of increasing the number of mail responses and
gathering information by telephone needed to estimate the impact of non-response. Households
that need a replacement questionnaire will be identified and sent a new one. The phone
interview is expected to take 5 minutes on average to complete, and we expect to attempt to
reach and complete interviews with up to 36% of the 510 potential respondents, or up to 184
individuals, for a total of approximately 15 burden hours (184 × 5 min). 7
Following the telephone prompts, a second full mailing will be attempted. This will not result in
any additional burden hours (included in burden hours from completed and returned surveys).
The total number of unique respondents to all survey contacts will be 440 (320 from mail survey
plus an additional 120 who only complete the short telephone interview). This number consists
of respondents who return the questionnaire (320) and respondents who do not return the
questionnaire but do provide some survey information during the telephone contact (120).
Survey instrument

Estimated
number of
respondents

Estimated
number of
responses
256

Estimated
time per
respondent
(minutes)
25

Estimated total
annual burden
hours
(hours)
107

Mail survey (from
initial mailing and
postcard reminder)
Mail survey (returned
after phone contact
and follow-up full
mailing)
Follow-up phone
survey
Total respondents

256

64

64

25

27

184a

184

5c

15

440b

504

149

a

Number of successful phone contacts of households that have not returned completed surveys following
initial mailing and postcard reminder.
b
Total respondents reflect the total sample size minus the households that do not complete either the mail
survey or phone interview.
c
This average time includes time for those who provide survey information.

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Although we will attempt to reach all households in the sample that have not returned a completed survey to this
point, we do not expect to be able to reach more than 184 in a timely and affordable manner.

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13. Provide an estimate for the total annual cost burden to respondents or recordkeepers
resulting from the collection (excluding the value of the burden hours in Question 12
above).
No additional cost burden will be imposed on respondents aside from the burden hours indicated
above.
14. Provide estimates of annualized costs to the Federal government.
Annual cost to the Federal government of the pretest is approximately $25,000 divided as
follows: $15,000 in contract award money and $10,000 in staff time and resources. Contractor
services include conducting the pretest implementation.
15. Explain the reasons for any program changes or adjustments.
This is a new collection.
16. For collections of information whose results will be published, outline plans for
tabulation and publication.
Internal memoranda and supporting materials will be prepared that document the sampling
procedures and response rates, provides statistical summaries (i.e., means, variances, and
frequency distributions) of data collected in the survey, and preliminary analysis that will be
used to aid in the design of the final experimental design and in improving the survey design.
These materials will not be published.
17. If seeking approval to not display the expiration date for OMB approval of the
information collection, explain the reasons why display would be inappropriate.
This item is not applicable, as the expiration date for OMB approval of the information
collection will be shown on the survey.
18. Explain each exception to the certification statement.
There are no exceptions.
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southwest England.” Biodiversity and Conservation. 12: 2361-2392.
Cummings, Ronald G. and Laura O. Taylor (1999) “Unbiased Value Estimates for Environmental Goods: A Cheap
Talk Design for the Contingent Valuation Method,” American Economic Review, 89(3): 1999.
Dillman, D.A. (2000) Mail and Internet Surveys: The Tailored Design Method. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

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Dunlap, Riley E., Kent D. Van Liere, Angela G. Mertig, and Robert Emmet Jones (2000) “Measuring Endorsement
of the New Ecological Paradigm: A Revised NEP Scale,” Journal of Social Issues, 56(3): 425-442.
Fredman, P. (1995) “The existence of existence value: a study of the economic benefits of an endangered species.”
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An Updated Meta-analysis.” Ecological Economics, 68: 1535-1548.
Singer E. (2002) “The use of incentives to reduce nonresponse in household surveys.: In Survey Nonresponse, ed.
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