Quantifying temporal changes in harvested populations is critical for applied and fundamental research. Unbiased data are required to detect true changes in phenotypic distribution or population size. Because of the difficulty of collecting detailed individual data from wild populations, data from hunting records are often used. Hunting records, however, may not represent a random sample of a p...

The first wild animal humans domesticated was the wolf (Canis lupus). The benefits of dog presence for human hunting success is often mentioned as a probable factor initiating the domestication of the wolf. We compared the per-hunter moose (Alces alces) hunting success of four hunter groups of different sizes with and without a dog. Groups with a dog had a higher hunting success for every group...

Predatory and scavenging birds are at risk of lead exposure when they feed on animals injured or killed by lead ammunition. While lead ammunition has been banned from waterfowl hunting in North America for almost two decades, lead ammunition is still widely used for hunting big game and small game animals. In this study, we evaluated the association between big game hunting and blood lead conce...

Unsustainable bushmeat hunting is a major threat to mammal species, particularly in West/Central Africa. We developed a multispecies dynamic simulation model of hunter behaviour, parameterized using data from the Ashanti region, Ghana. The model distinguishes between two hunting techniques, snaring and gun hunting. We analyse the impact of key economic parameters on off-takes. Economic incentiv...

Prey shifts in carnivorous predators are events that can initiate the accelerated generation of new biodiversity. However, it is seldom possible to reconstruct how the change in prey preference occurred. Here we describe an evolutionary "smoking gun" that illuminates the transition from worm hunting to fish hunting among marine cone snails, resulting in the adaptive radiation of fish-hunting li...

Bushmeat hunting threatens biodiversity and increases the risk of zoonotic pathogen transmission. Nevertheless, limited information exists on patterns of contact with wildlife in communities that practice bushmeat hunting, especially with respect to social drivers of hunting behavior. We used interview responses from hunters and non-hunters in rural hunting communities in Nigeria to: 1) quantif...

Contemporary subsistence hunting practices of North American Indians have been questioned because of hunters’ use of modern technologies and integration of wage-based and subsistence livelihoods. Tribal traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) has been questioned on similar grounds and used as justification for ignoring tribal perspectives on critical natural resource conservation and development...

International pressure to ban trophy hunting is increasing. However, we argue that trophy hunting can be an important conservation tool, provided it can be done in a controlled manner to benefit biodiversity conservation and local people. Where political and governance structures are adequate, trophy hunting can help address the ongoing loss of species.

Records of official deer control operations in the Kaweka Range between 1958 and 1988 have been used to describe the pattern of official hunting, to indicate changes in hunting efficiency, and to show trends in the proportions of sika and red deer in sympatric populations. The pattern of hunting largely reflected wild animal control priorities, and to some extent the resources available. Wherea...

BACKGROUND The influence of policy on the incidence of human-wildlife conflict can be complex and not entirely anticipated. Policies for managing bear hunter success and depredation on hunting dogs by wolves represent an important case because with increasing wolves, depredations are expected to increase. This case is challenging because compensation for wolf depredation on hunting dogs as comp...