Sustainable hunting

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Sustainable hunting is a conservation-based hunting approach that does not reduce the density [1] of the game animal being hunted via the adherence to hunting limits. [2] Sustainable hunting is a method of hunting that focuses on not degrading the environment and using fees related to hunting for conservation purposes to instead protect and help the environment flourish. [3] This concept is supposed to be a more sustainable and less invasive form of hunting as it aims to preserve or even improve the environment where unregulated hunting can destroy and even cause species to go extinct when left unchecked. [4] In order for hunting to be sustainable, hunting laws and limits [3] must be followed. Species that are vulnerable or endangered must be protected, [3] as taking from their population can be detrimental. Once the level of removal reaches a level higher than the population can reproduce, [1] then the extraction of species in that area is no longer sustainable as, over time, the numbers will dwindle. Certain precautions need to be taken in regard to species that do not reproduce as fast; one such precaution is allowing the animal to be hunted once it has reached an age where it can no longer reproduce. [1] Utilizing hunting and its associated fees to generate conservation revenue has proven successful in the past. [3] Still, due to limited data and issues around ethics, current efforts and other challenges prevent the growth of sustainable hunting as a model. Some troubles with compiling accurate research include subpopulations of species intermixing with other populations and allowing the species to recover [1] where if it were left isolated, its rate of decline would have been too high to be sustained. Methods for sustainable hunting vary, but researchers are looking to find the maximum level of game [1] that can be taken while still being sustainable to reap the most benefits per season.

Contents

History

There are multiple influences to the sustainable hunting approach and political meetings that form its history. In the past, the sustainable hunting approach was developed as the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation (NAMWC). [3] The NAMWC was utilized in the Pittman-Robertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act [3] of 1937, where revenue generated from a tax on hunting-related equipment such as firearms and ammunition was utilized in conservation efforts. [5] This act propelled conservation efforts and generated millions of dollars towards protecting and developing the environment. [5] Research in this field is still new, and efforts are currently being made to create better, more sustainable hunting models. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has worked towards bringing sustainable hunting to become more researched and organized. [3] The use of sustainable hunting tools such as targeting older males, use of permits, and hunting seasons were utilized in the Pakistani mountains to prevent the extinction of Afghan Urial and the straight horned markhor [6] in the 1990s to early 2000s. In the late 1800s, the American Bison population was severely threatened by extinction until a more sustainable approach to their take was developed, which raised populations from the thousands to roughly 350,000. [7] In South Africa, 80% of nature conservation is done on private land, and between the 1990s and 2002, there was a significant increase in cattle ranching land being converted to hunting game ranches. [8]

Methods

Various actions and plans can be taken to make hunting more sustainable. A common practice of most sustainable hunting models includes using monetary value derived from purchases and spending that money back on conservation. Methods regarding what and when animals should and shouldn't be taken are also common, such as hunting outside of breeding seasons, restricting areas that can be hunted, and not hunting premature game. [9] Selective hunting and implementing hunting seasons are other approaches by which flourishing species can be taken while those with threatened populations are protected. [9] Hunting limits are also an effective measure, as over-harvest will negatively affect the population's density. [1] Studies have shown that it is best when a bundle of these methods are applied to have the greatest effect on growing a population. [10] A method seen in Zambia is the closure of hunting for a short number of years to allow species recovery. [10] While recovery is often used once the damage has been done, using it as a precautionary measure has proven effective in that estimates of age restrictions and other regulations are not always fully accurate; thus, temporary complete closure accounts for error. [10] Conservation efforts through the use of trophy hunting have been used to grow the white rhinoceros population as a managed hunting system allows for calculated removal from populations, generating revenue without affecting numbers too much. [11] When hunting has no regulation, no money is gained for conservation, and the removal rate is unregulated. With trophy hunting, conservation revenue is made even where ecotourism is not possible. [11]

Current efforts

Sustainability and conservation have been a relatively new focus for the world as environmental changes press forward. [12] Current examples of sustainable hunting and conservation development include collecting more data in a methodical manner to better study policy's effect on populations, as well as the World Wide Fund for Nature measuring the effect of sustainable hunting in Namibia [1] through the Living in a Finite Environment Project. This project worked to develop conservation planning and has been successful in preventing the overexploitation of resources such as locally hunted animals. [13] In regards to whaling, Japan had put toward conservation efforts until it withdrew from the International Whaling Commission in 2018 due to a shift toward restricted whale hunting compared to sustainable taking. [14] [11] Efforts toward sustainable hunting can stem from the need for local cultures to continue harvesting bushmeat species. The flying fox, for example, is culturally valuable, and as its harvest is unlikely to be stopped, methods of regulating the take can be implemented. [15] While a sustainable implementation of trophy and sport hunting has improved the numbers of some species, a sustainable modeled management does not always guarantee the growth of the population in targeted species. For instance, despite an aim to increase waterfowl populations in the 1990s and 2000s, the number of species most sought by hunters such as black ducks and mallards continued to fall. [16]

Challenges

There are many obstacles that prevent sustainable hunting from growing into a model where populations would not be negatively affected by hunting. These include issues such as private land, the growth of the human population, and the challenge of creating laws/ regulations that protect multiple species. [9] Political issues regarding indigenous people and those who rely on certain animals for food also pose challenges. Protections that promote sustainable hunting need to be strict enough to effectively regulate commercialized and recreational huntsmen and prevent the populations of game animals from dwindling, but special policies must ensure that those who rely on the animals for a way of life can still survive. [9] Conflicting views between those who support sustainable hunting and groups like the Humane Society of the United States make ethical considerations another factor when implementing this system. [3] Certain geographical areas, such as parts of Africa, rely on mammals that may be endemic or endangered to the world but are still hunted as the main source of bushmeat to allow human survival. [17] This conflicts with conservation-related hunting practices as the food source needs to be taken regardless of environmental concerns. Other challenges include finding ways of systemizing and measuring data accurately and using it to develop a sustainable hunting model that will for sure be successful. Factors from other human-related environmental pressures, such as urbanization and climate change, make conclusive models hard to calculate. [18] When sport hunting is implemented as a conservation tool through revenue generation to help the targeted species flourish, the conservation approach itself can have adverse effects. [19] Adverse effects and biodiversity issues have arisen in the case of white-tailed deer in the U.S. from attempts to keep their population numbers high to supply enough game for hunters. The artificially high game numbers then cause environmental damage, showing that the growth of population numbers, often a goal for sustainable hunting models, poses its own challenges. [19]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hunting</span> Searching, pursuing, and killing wild animals

Hunting is the human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, and killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to obtain the animal's body for meat and useful animal products, for recreation/taxidermy, although it may also be done for resourceful 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Poaching</span> Illegal hunting of wildlife

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wildlife</span> Undomesticated organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans

Wildlife refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those birds and mammals that were hunted for sport. Wildlife can be found in all ecosystems. Deserts, plains, grasslands, woodlands, forests, and other areas including the most developed urban areas, all have distinct forms of wildlife. While the term in popular culture usually refers to animals that are untouched by human factors, most scientists agree that much wildlife is affected by human activities. Some wildlife threaten human safety, health, property and quality of life. However, many wild animals, even the dangerous ones, have value to human beings. This value might be economic, educational, or emotional in nature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Habitat conservation</span> Management practice for protecting types of environments

Habitat conservation is a management practice that seeks to conserve, protect and restore habitats and prevent species extinction, fragmentation or reduction in range. It is a priority of many groups that cannot be easily characterized in terms of any one ideology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bushmeat</span> Meat hunted in tropical forests

Bushmeat is meat from wildlife species that are hunted for human consumption. Bushmeat represents a primary source of animal protein and a cash-earning commodity in poor and rural communities of humid tropical forest regions of the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Game (hunting)</span> Wild animals under pursuit or taken in hunting

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wildlife conservation</span> Practice of protecting wild plant and animal species and their habitats

Wildlife conservation refers to the practice of protecting wild species and their habitats in order to maintain healthy wildlife species or populations and to restore, protect or enhance natural ecosystems. Major threats to wildlife include habitat destruction, degradation, fragmentation, overexploitation, poaching, pollution, climate change, and the illegal wildlife trade. The IUCN estimates that 42,100 species of the ones assessed are at risk for extinction. Expanding to all existing species, a 2019 UN report on biodiversity put this estimate even higher at a million species. It is also being acknowledged that an increasing number of ecosystems on Earth containing endangered species are disappearing. To address these issues, there have been both national and international governmental efforts to preserve Earth's wildlife. Prominent conservation agreements include the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). There are also numerous nongovernmental organizations (NGO's) dedicated to conservation such as the Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, and Conservation International.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trophy hunting</span> Hunting of wild animals for trophies

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 the head, hide, tusks, horns, or antlers.

The Lower Guinean forests also known as the Lower Guinean-Congolian forests, are a region of coastal tropical moist broadleaf forest in West Africa, extending along the eastern coast of the Gulf of Guinea from eastern Benin through Nigeria and Cameroon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wildlife tourism</span>

Wildlife tourism is an element of many nations' travel industry centered around observation and interaction with local animal and plant life in their natural habitats. While it can include eco- and animal-friendly tourism, safari hunting and similar high-intervention activities also fall under the umbrella of wildlife tourism. Wildlife tourism, in its simplest sense, is interacting with wild animals in their natural habitat, either actively or passively. Wildlife tourism is an important part of the tourism industries in many countries including many African and South American countries, Australia, India, Canada, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Maldives among many. It has experienced a dramatic and rapid growth in recent years worldwide and many elements are closely aligned to eco-tourism and sustainable tourism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Big–game hunting</span> Hunting of large animals

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.

Overpopulation or overabundance is a phenomenon in which a species' population becomes larger than the carrying capacity of its environment. This may be caused by increased birth rates, lowered mortality rates, reduced predation or large scale migration, leading to an overabundant species and other animals in the ecosystem competing for food, space, and resources. The animals in an overpopulated area may then be forced to migrate to areas not typically inhabited, or die off without access to necessary resources.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Defaunation</span> Loss or extinctions of animals in the forests

Defaunation is the global, local, or functional extinction of animal populations or species from ecological communities. The growth of the human population, combined with advances in harvesting technologies, has led to more intense and efficient exploitation of the environment. This has resulted in the depletion of large vertebrates from ecological communities, creating what has been termed "empty forest". Defaunation differs from extinction; it includes both the disappearance of species and declines in abundance. Defaunation effects were first implied at the Symposium of Plant-Animal Interactions at the University of Campinas, Brazil in 1988 in the context of Neotropical forests. Since then, the term has gained broader usage in conservation biology as a global phenomenon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Overexploitation</span> Depleting a renewable resource

Overexploitation, also called overharvesting, refers to harvesting a renewable resource to the point of diminishing returns. Continued overexploitation can lead to the destruction of the resource, as it will be unable to replenish. The term applies to natural resources such as water aquifers, grazing pastures and forests, wild medicinal plants, fish stocks and other wildlife.

Population control is the practice of artificially maintaining the size of any population. It simply refers to the act of limiting the size of an animal population so that it remains manageable, as opposed to the act of protecting a species from excessive rates of extinction, which is referred to as conservation biology.

The Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) is a Zimbabwean community-based natural resource management program. It is one of the first programs to consider wildlife as renewable natural resources, while addressing the allocation of its ownership to indigenous peoples in and around conservation protected areas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wildlife farming</span> Raising of traditionally undomesticated animals

Wildlife farming refers to the raising of traditionally undomesticated animals in an agricultural setting to produce: living animals for canned hunting and to be kept as pets; commodities such as food and traditional medicine; and materials like leather, fur and fiber.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African vulture trade</span> Use of vulture for various reasons in Sub-Saharan Africa

The African vulture trade involves the poaching, trafficking, and illegal sale of vultures and vulture parts for bushmeat and for ritual and religious use, like traditional medicines, in Sub-Saharan Africa. This illegal trade of vultures and vulture parts is contributing to a population crisis on the continent. In 2017, the IUCN Red List categorized 7 of Africa's 11 vulture species as globally endangered or critically endangered. Recent research suggests that 90% of vulture species declines in Africa may be due to a combination of poisoning and illegal wildlife trade for medicinal use and/or bushmeat. All trade of African vultures is illegal, as these birds are protected by international laws.

In biology, overabundant species refers to an excessive number of individuals and occurs when the normal population density has been exceeded. Increase in animal populations is influenced by a variety of factors, some of which include habitat destruction or augmentation by human activity, the introduction of invasive species and the reintroduction of threatened species to protected reserves.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pokola</span> Town and commune in the Republic of the Congo

Pokola is a town and a commune located in the northern Republic of Congo in the Sangha Department. In 2018, the town had a population of 14,726.

References

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  6. ↑ Bellon, Luc. "Sustainable Conservation and Grassroots realities lessons from the Conservation Program In Torghar, Balochistan, Pakistan" (PDF). Best Practices in Sustainable Hunting (2008) Pp. 27–31.
  7. ↑ Lueck, Dean (2002). "The Extermination and Conservation of the American Bison". The Journal of Legal Studies. 31 (S2): S609–S652. doi:10.1086/340410. ISSN   0047-2530. JSTOR   10.1086/340410.
  8. ↑ Merwe, P. van der; Saayman, M. (2003-12-18). "Determining the economic value of game farm tourism". Koedoe. 46 (2): 103–112. ISSN   2071-0771.
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  11. 1 2 3 Lindsey, Peter A.; Frank, L. G.; Alexander, R.; Mathieson, A.; Romañach, S. S. (2007). "Trophy Hunting and Conservation in Africa: Problems and One Potential Solution". Conservation Biology. 21 (3): 880–883. Bibcode:2007ConBi..21..880L. doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2006.00594.x. ISSN   0888-8892. JSTOR   4620884. PMID   17531065.
  12. ↑ Pyhälä, Aili; Fernández-Llamazares, Álvaro; Lehvävirta, Hertta; Byg, Anja; Ruiz-Mallén, Isabel; Salpeteur, Matthieu; Thornton, Thomas F. (2016). "Global environmental change: local perceptions, understandings, and explanations". Ecology and Society. 21 (3). doi:10.5751/ES-08482-210325. ISSN   1708-3087. JSTOR   26269967. PMC   5040507 . PMID   27695479.
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  15. ↑ Lavery, Tyrone H.; Fasi, John (2019). "Buying through your teeth: traditional currency and conservation of flying foxes Pteropus spp. in Solomon Islands". Oryx. 53 (3): 505–512. doi:10.1017/S0030605317001004. ISSN   0030-6053.
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  17. ↑ Brown, David; FA*, JULIA E. "Impacts of hunting on mammals in African tropical moist forests: a review and synthesis". Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust.
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  19. 1 2 Loveridge, Andrew; Reynolds; Gulland. "Does sport hunting benefit conservation?". ResearchGate.
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