A professional hunter (less frequently referred to as market or commercial hunter and regionally, especially in Britain and Ireland, as professional stalker or gamekeeper) is a person who hunts and/or manages game by profession. Some professional hunters work in the private sector or for government agencies and manage species that are considered overabundant, [1] [2] others are self-employed and make a living by selling hides and meat, [3] while still others guide clients on big-game hunts. [4]
In Australia several million kangaroos are shot each year by licensed professional hunters in population control programmes, with both their meat and hides sold. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
German professional hunters (Berufsjäger or Berufsjägerinnen depending on gender) mostly work for large private forest estates and for state-owned forest enterprises, where they control browsing by reducing the numbers of ungulates like roe deer or chamois, manage populations of sought-after trophy species like red deer and act as hunting guides for paying clients. [10] [11] [12]
The countries of Southern and Eastern Africa, especially Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, are major destinations for big-game hunting tourism in Africa. [13] [14] Local professional hunters, often simply referred to as PH, act as hunting guides for paying guest hunters and manage safari hunting businesses. [15] [16] [17]
Historically, professional big-game hunters of European descent who plied their trade in Africa, especially during the first half of the 20th century, are often referred to as "white hunters" or "great white hunters". [18]
British professional stalkers and gamekeepers primarily work on large estates, especially in the Scottish Highlands, where they most commonly manage red deer, common pheasant, red grouse and French partridge. [19] [20] Early in the 20th century there were an estimated 25,000 professional stalkers and gamekeepers employed in the UK, [21] while today there are some 3000. [22]
In a North American context the terms market hunter and commercial hunter are predominantly used to refer to hunters of the 19th and early 20th century who sold or traded the flesh, bones, skins and feathers of slain animals as a source of income. These hunters focused on species which gathered in large numbers for breeding, feeding, or migration and were organized into factory-like groups that would systematically depopulate an area of any valuable wildlife over a short period of time. The animals which were hunted included bison, deer, ducks and other waterfowl, geese, pigeons and many other birds, seals and walruses, fish, river mussels, and clams. [24]
Populations of large birds were severely depleted through the 19th and early 20th century. The extermination of several species and the threatened loss of others caused popular legislation effectively prohibiting this form of commercial hunting in the United States. Hunting seasons were eventually established to conserve surviving wildlife and allow a certain amount of recovery and re-population to occur. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act signed in 1918 regulated hunting and prohibited all hunting of wood ducks until 1941 and swans until 1962. [25]
Agencies like the federal Wildlife Services (not to be confused with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service), part of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), and its equivalents on the state level employ professional hunters for lethal as well as non-lethal control of wildlife, for example, dealing with wildlife preying on livestock (or humans) and engaging in bird control to prevent bird strikes. [26] [27] [28] The federal Wildlife Services alone has a staff of around 750 professional hunters. [28] It works on around 565 airports around the United States to identify and reduce threats posed by bird strikes. [28]
The Scottish Deerhound, or simply the Deerhound, is a British breed of large sighthound, once bred to hunt the red deer by coursing. In outward appearance, the Scottish Deerhound is similar to the Greyhound, but larger and more heavily boned with a rough-coat. The Deerhound is closely related to the Irish wolfhound and was the principal contributor to that breed when it was created at the end of the 19th century.
Hunting is the human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to exploit the animal's body for meat and useful animal products, for recreation/taxidermy, although it may also be done for non-exploitative reasons such as removing 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.
Poaching is the illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights. Poaching was once performed by impoverished peasants for subsistence purposes and to supplement meager diets. It was set against the hunting privileges of nobility and territorial rulers.
A game reserve is a large area of land where wild animals live safely or are hunted in a controlled way for sport. If hunting is prohibited, a game reserve may be considered a nature reserve; however, the focus of a game reserve is specifically the animals (fauna), whereas a nature reserve is also, if not equally, concerned with all aspects of native biota of the area.
The "Bambi effect" is an objection against the killing of animals that are perceived as "cute" or "adorable", such as deer, while there may be little or no objection to the suffering of animals that are perceived as somehow repulsive or less than desirable, such as pigs or other woodland creatures.
Game or quarry is any wild animal hunted for animal products, for recreation ("sporting"), or for trophies. The species of animals hunted as game varies in different parts of the world and by different local jurisdictions, though most are terrestrial mammals and birds. Fish caught non-commercially are also referred to as game fish.
A canned hunt is a trophy hunt which is not "fair chase", typically by having game animals kept in a confined area such as in a fenced ranch to prevent the animals' escape and make tracking easier for the hunter, in order to increase the likelihood of the hunter obtaining a kill. The term has been used for driven grouse shooting, in which large areas of Britain are farmed for red grouse. According to WordNet, a canned hunt is a "hunt for animals that have been raised on game ranches until they are mature enough to be killed for trophy collections."
In the United Kingdom, a gamekeeper is a person who manages an area of countryside to make sure there is enough game for hunting, or fish for fishing, and acts as guide to those pursuing them.
Trophy hunting is a form of hunting for sport in which parts of the hunted wild animals are kept and displayed as trophies. The animal being targeted, known as the "game", is typically a mature male specimen from a popular species of collectable interests, usually of large sizes, holding impressive horns, antlers, furs or manes. Most trophies consist of only select parts of the animal, which are prepared for display by a taxidermist. The parts most commonly kept vary by species, but often include head, hide, tusks, horns, or antlers.
Bowhunting is the practice of hunting game animals by archery. Many indigenous peoples have employed the technique as their primary hunting method for thousands of years, and it has survived into contemporary use for sport and hunting.
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 Boone and Crockett Club is an American nonprofit organization that advocates fair chase hunting in support of habitat conservation. The club is North America's oldest wildlife and habitat conservation organization, founded in the United States in 1887 by Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinell. The club was named in honor of hunter-heroes of the day, Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, whom the club's founders viewed as pioneering men who hunted extensively while opening the American frontier, but realized the consequences of overharvesting game. In addition to authoring a famous "fair chase" statement of hunter ethics, the club worked for the expansion and protection of Yellowstone National Park and the establishment of American conservation in general. The Club and its members were also responsible for the elimination of commercial market hunting, creation of the National Park and National Forest Services, National Wildlife Refuge system, wildlife reserves, and funding for conservation, all under the umbrella of what is known today as the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation.
Big-game hunting is the hunting of large game animals for trophies, taxidermy, meat, and commercially valuable animal by-products. The term is often associated with the hunting of Africa's "Big Five" games, and Indian rhinoceros and Bengal tigers on the Indian subcontinent.
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. Firearm ownership is regulated in the UK by licensing. Provisions exist for those without a Firearm or Shotgun certificate to shoot under the supervision of a certificate holder.
Opposition to hunting is espoused by people or groups who object to the practice of hunting, often seeking anti-hunting legislation and sometimes taking on acts of civil disobedience, such as hunt sabotage. Anti-hunting laws, such as the English Hunting Act 2004, are generally distinguishable from conservation legislation like the American Marine Mammal Protection Act by whether they seek to reduce or prevent hunting for perceived cruelty-related reasons or to regulate hunting for conservation, although the boundaries of distinction are sometimes blurred in specific laws, for example when endangered animals are hunted.
A hunting license or hunting permit is a regulatory or legal mechanism to control hunting, both commercial and recreational. A license specifically made for recreational hunting is sometimes called a game license.
A hunting season is the designated time in which certain game animals can be killed in certain designated areas. In the United States, each state determines and sets its own specific dates to hunt the certain game animal, such as California, in which they designate certain zones, in which each have their own separate dates in order to legally hunt.
Australia has a population of about 25 million, with the Commonwealth Government's 2019 survey estimating there are 640,000 recreational hunters in the country. There are around 5.8 million legally owned guns in Australia, ranging from airguns to single-shot, bolt-action, pump-action, lever-action or semi-automatic firearms.
Green hunting is the practice of tracking and shooting game animals with non-lethal tranquilizer guns or bows and subsequently releasing the captured animals alive. Green hunting would typically be performed when tranquilization of the animal is necessary for veterinary, monitoring or species translocation purposes.
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