Effect of Hunting and Trapping on Wildlife Damage

Hunting and trapping regulations are established so that these practices have little or no impact on those wildlife populations that do not cause damage. However, when wildlife populations cause significant damage, one reported benefit of allowing them to be trapped for furs or hunted is that these practices reduce wildlife damage below levels that would otherwise occur. Yet this reported benefit has not been examined critically. In this paper, I review the scientific literature to evaluate the hypothesis that hunting or fur trapping reduces wildlife damage. Hunting and trapping may reduce wildlife damage by 1) reducing wildlife populations below the environmental carrying capacity, 2) removing animals from the population before they would otherwise die, or 3) changing behavior of wildlife. It also can increase landowner tolerance of wildlife damage. Use of hunters and trappers is the most cost-effective method available to society to reduce wildlife populations, especially over large areas. Sometimes, efforts to use hunters and trappers to reduce wildlife populations are ineffective because there are too few hunters and trappers or too much land is off-limits to them. However, hunting and trapping can reduce populations below the environmental carrying capacity and reduce damage to crops from species which are trapped or hunted intensively, such as white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). For other game and furbearer species, hunting and trapping also may alleviate wildlife damage, but do so primarily by changing animal behavior. Finally, hunting and trapping may increase wildlife value and increase the willingness of landowners to tolerate damage from wildlife.