WP4: Biodiversity and hunting

- the ecological perspective

 

About hunting, sustainable harvesting and consequences for biodiversity

• Relationships between hunting management and conservation of biodiversity
• Social-ecological modelling for improved sustainability of hunting

Hunting and the management of hunting have profound effects on the landscape and its biodiversity, including both positive and negative outcomes. However, sustainable hunting is not necessarily a contradiction in terms. The maintenance of natural areas is an essential requirement to sustain and produce wild game. Hunting may thus aid the conservation of highly valued landscapes and associated species. On the other hand, excessive hunting may lead to a loss of game, a change in land use and corresponding loss of valued landscapes and biodiversity. Moreover, the economic and social pressures that lead to a desire to have high densities of game, may also lead to management regimes that negatively affect biodiversity. For example, the legal and illegal control of some predators that prey on game has led to their subsequent elimination from large areas, with potentially cascading effects through the ecosystem. Furthermore, where hunting management is intensive, practices such as restocking game populations, introducing new, alien species for hunting, or artificially increasing natural densities of game through fencing or food provisioning may also have a potentially large impact on landscapes, habitats and species. Thus, there are both biodiversity costs and benefits associated with hunting.