Hunting is the practice of seeking, pursuing and capturing or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest useful animal products, for recreation/taxidermy, to remove predators dangerous to humans or domestic animals, to eliminate pests and nuisance animals that damage crops/livestock/poultry or spread diseases, for trade/tourism, or for ecological conservation against overpopulation and invasive species.
Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation and parasitoidism. It is distinct from scavenging on dead prey, though many predators also scavenge; it overlaps with herbivory, as seed predators and destructive frugivores are predators.
Stalk or stalking may refer to:
Spotlighting or lamping is a method of hunting nocturnal animals using off-road vehicles and high-powered lights, spotlights, lamps or flashlights, that makes special use of the eyeshine revealed by many animal species. A further important aspect is that many animals often remain to continually stare at the light and do not appear to see the light as a threat as they normally would view a human. It is possible to carefully approach animals on foot to a short distance if the bright light is continuously maintained on the animal to greatly improve chances of successful killing. Spotlighting may also be used as a method of surveying nocturnal fauna. Repeated, frequent spotlighting may have a detrimental effect on animals and is discouraged.
A pack hunter or social predator is a predatory animal which hunts its prey by working together with other members of its species. Normally animals hunting in this way are closely related, and with the exceptions of chimpanzees where only males normally hunt, all individuals in a family group contribute to hunting. When hunting cooperation is across two or more species, the broader term cooperative hunting is commonly used.
Wildlife management is the management process influencing interactions among and between wildlife, its habitats and people to achieve predefined impacts. It attempts to balance the needs of wildlife with the needs of people using the best available science. Wildlife management can include wildlife conservation, gamekeeping and pest control. Wildlife management draws on disciplines such as mathematics, chemistry, biology, ecology, climatology and geography to gain the best results.
The Kaibab Plateau is a plateau almost entirely in Coconino County, Arizona in the Southwestern United States. The high plain is also known as the Buckskin Mountain, Buckskin Plateau, and Kaibab Mountain.
Tracking in hunting and ecology is the science and art of observing animal tracks and other signs, with the goal of gaining understanding of the landscape and the animal being tracked. A further goal of tracking is the deeper understanding of the systems and patterns that make up the environment surrounding and incorporating the tracker.
Persistence hunting is a hunting technique in which hunters, who may be slower than their prey over short distances, use a combination of running, walking, and tracking to pursue prey until it is fatigued or overheated. A persistence hunter must be able to run a long distance over an extended period of time. The strategy is used by a variety of canids such as African wild dogs, and by human hunter-gatherers.
A predator trap is a natural hazard where prey animals become trapped or incapacitated, and the attracted predators suffer the same fate. More predators, scavengers, insects and birds become attracted to this mounting accumulation of carrion, until a wide variety of animals are caught and ultimately killed by the hazard. This may happen many times over. Typically, the number of lured predators will greatly outnumber the prey, thus providing the name.
Big-game hunting is the hunting of large game animals for meat, commercially valuable by-products, trophy/taxidermy, or simply just for recreation ("sporting"). The term is often associated with the hunting of Africa's "Big Five" games, and with tigers and rhinoceroses on the Indian subcontinent. Many other species of big game are hunted including kudu, antelope, and hartebeest. Whale, moose, elk, caribou, bison, mule deer, brown bear and white-tailed deer are the largest game hunted in North America, where most big-game hunting is conducted today.
The Predator or Hish-Qu-Ten) is an extraterrestrial species featured in the Predator science-fiction franchise, characterized by its trophy hunting of other species for sport. First introduced in 1987 as the main antagonist of the film Predator, the Predator creatures returned in the sequels Predator 2 (1990), Predators (2010) and The Predator (2018), as well as the crossover films Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007).
Deer hunting is hunting for deer for meat or sport, an activity which dates back tens of thousands of years. Venison, the name for deer meat, is a nutritious and natural food source of animal protein that can be obtained through deer hunting. There are many different types of deer around the world that are hunted for their meat.
In the United Kingdom, the term hunting with no qualification generally refers to hunting with hounds, e.g. normally fox hunting, stag (deer) hunting, beagling, or minkhunting, whereas shooting is the shooting of game birds. What is called deer hunting elsewhere is deer stalking. According to the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) over a million people a year participate in shooting, including stalking, shooting, hunting, clay shooting and target shooting. To undertake shooting in the UK a valid firearms licence and insurance is required.
Stotting is a behavior of quadrupeds, particularly gazelles, in which they spring into the air, lifting all four feet off the ground simultaneously. Usually, the legs are held in a relatively stiff position. Many explanations of stotting have been proposed; there is evidence that at least in some cases it is an honest signal to predators that the stotting animal would be difficult to catch.
Deer stalking, or simply stalking, is a British term for the stealthy pursuit of deers on foot with intention of hunting for meat, for leisure/trophy, or to control their numbers. As part of wildlife management, just as with rabbiting and boar hunting, the aim of deer stalking is to help reduce crop damage and to obtain venison. Also, as with other types of hunting, deer stalking has long been considered a pastime sport.
Prey detection is the process by which predators are able to detect and locate their prey via sensory signals. This article treats predation in its broadest sense, i.e. where one organism eats another.
Tiger attacks are an extreme form of human–wildlife conflict which occur for various reasons and have claimed more human lives than attacks by any of the other big cats. The most comprehensive study of deaths due to tiger attacks estimates that at least 373,000 people died due to tiger attacks between 1800 and 2009 averaging about 1800 kills per year, the majority of these attacks occurring in South and Southeast Asia.
Overpopulation or overabundance occurs when a species' population becomes so excessive that people deem it must be managed. It can result from an increase in births, a decline in the mortality rate, an increase in immigration, or a depletion of resources. When overpopulation occurs the available resources become too limited for the entire population to survive comfortably or at all in long term.
Pursuit predation is a form of predation in which predators actively give chase to their prey, either solitarily or as a group. It is an alternate predation strategy to ambush predation — pursuit predators rely on superior speed, endurance and/or teamwork to seize the prey, while ambush predators use stealth, luring, the use of surroundings and the element of surprise to capture the prey. While the two patterns of predation are not mutually exclusive, morphological differences in an organism's body plan can create an evolutionary bias favoring either type of predation.