Chimpanzee hunting provides information on prey characteristics and constraints acting on a large-bodied primate lacking a hunting technology, and has important implications for modeling hunting by fossil hominids. Analysis of the remains of five red colobus monkeys captured and consumed by Gombe chimpanzees in a single hunting bout provides one of the first opportunities to investigate the cha...

—We studied the nocturnal hunting behavior of eight radiotagged Eastern Screech-owls (Otus asio; five females and three males) during the period from November 1994 through March 1995. Screech-owls selected low perches when hunting (x = 1.66 m), presumably to obtain a clear view of the ground and an unobstructed flight path to prey. Low perches may also improve the ability of screech-owls to hea...

1. The population dynamic and evolutionary effects of harvesting are receiving growing attention among biologists. Cause-specific estimates of mortality are necessary to determine and compare the magnitude and selectivity of hunting and other types of mortalities. In addition to the logistic and financial constraints on longitudinal studies, they are complicated by the fact that nonhunting mort...

Ecologists have long searched for a framework of a priori species traits to help predict predator-prey interactions in food webs. Empirical evidence has shown that predator hunting mode and predator and prey habitat domain are useful traits for explaining predator-prey interactions. Yet, individual experiments have yet to replicate predator hunting mode, calling into question whether predator i...

BACKGROUND Subsistence hunting is a traditional practice providing food and many other goods for households in the Yucatan Peninsula, southeast Mexico. Economic, demographic, and cultural change in this region drive wildlife habitat loss and local extinctions. Improving our understanding about current practices of wildlife use may support better management strategies for conserving game species...

BACKGROUND Ungulate movements are influenced by a variety of biotic and abiotic factors, which may affect connectivity between key resource areas and seasonal ranges. In northwestern Alaska, one important question regarding human impacts on ungulate movement involves caribou (Rangifer tarandus) response to autumn hunting and related aircraft activity. While concerns have been voiced by local hu...

BACKGROUND Expanding lead-based bullets, commonly used for hunting of big game, produce a scattering of lead particles in the carcass around the wound channel. Trimmings around this channel, which are sometimes fed to dogs, may contain lead particles. The aim of this study was to assess potential health effects of feeding dogs such trimmings. RESULTS Lead ingestion most commonly causes gastro...

Although large-bodied tropical forest birds are impacted by both habitat loss and fragmentation, their patterns of habitat occupancy will also depend on the degree of forest habitat disturbance, which may interact synergistically or additively with fragmentation effects. Here, we examine the effects of forest patch and landscape metrics, and levels of forest disturbance on the patterns of persi...

Responding only to individuals of a predator species which display threatening behaviour allows prey species to minimise energy expenditure and other costs of predator avoidance, such as disruption of feeding. The threat sensitivity hypothesis predicts such behaviour in prey species. If hunted animals are unable to distinguish dangerous humans from non-dangerous humans, human hunting is likely ...