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Hunting is the Human activity of seeking, pursuing, capturing, and killing wildlife or . The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to obtain the animal's body for meat and useful (fur/hide, bone/, horn/antler, etc.), for recreation/taxidermy (see trophy hunting), although it may also be done for resourceful reasons such as removing dangerous to humans or (e.g. wolf hunting), to pest control pests and that damage /livestock/poultry or zoonosis (see varmint hunting), for trade/tourism (see safari), or for ecological conservation against overpopulation and invasive species (commonly called a cull).
Recreationally hunted species are generally referred to as the game, and are usually and . A person participating in a hunt is a hunter or (less commonly) huntsman; a natural area used for hunting is called a game reserve; and an experienced hunter who helps organise a hunt and/or manage the game reserve is also known as a gamekeeper.
Hunting activities by humans arose in Homo erectus or earlier, in the order of millions of years ago. Hunting has become deeply embedded in various and was once an important part of rural economies—classified by economists as part of primary production alongside forestry, agriculture, and fishery. Modern regulations (see game law) distinguish lawful hunting activities from illegal poaching, which involves the unauthorised and unregulated killing, trapping, or capture of animals.
Apart from food provision, hunting can be a means of population control. Hunting advocates state that regulated hunting can be a necessary componentWilliams, Ted. "Wanted: More Hunters," Audubon magazine, March 2002, copy retrieved 26 October 2007. of modern wildlife management, for example to help maintain a healthy proportion of animal populations within an environment's ecological carrying capacity when natural checks such as are absent or insufficient, or to provide funding for and maintenance of and conservation parks. However, overhunting has also heavily contributed to the endangerment, local extinction and extinction of many animals."Red List Overview". IUCN Red List. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 8 September 2010. Some animal-rights and anti-hunting activists regard hunting as a cruel, zoosadism and unnecessary blood sport. Certain hunting practices, such as and bidding war/bribery safari (especially to poor countries), are considered fair chase and exploitative even by some hunters.
such as and are also targets of hunting, both recreationally and commercially, often with heated controversies regarding the morality, ethics and legality of such practices. The pursuit, harvesting or catch and release of fish and aquatic animal and is called fishing, which however is widely accepted and not commonly categorised as a form of hunting. It is also not considered hunting to pursue animals without intent to kill them, as in wildlife photography, birdwatching, or scientific-research activities which involve tranquilizing or tagging of animals, although green hunting is still called so. The practices of butterfly net or insect trap and other for trophy collection, or the foraging or hunter-gatherer of and , are also not regarded as hunting.
Skillful animal tracking and acquisition of an elusive target has caused the word hunt to be used in the vernacular as a metaphor for searching and obtaining something, as in "treasure hunting", "bargain hunting", "hunting for votes" and even "punishment" corruption and waste.
The verb, Old English huntian "to chase game" (Transitive verb and intransitive), perhaps developed from hunta "hunter," is related to hentan "to seize," from Proto-Germanic huntojan (the source also of Gothic language hinþan "to seize, capture," Old High German hunda "booty"), which is of uncertain origin. The general sense of "search diligently" (for anything) is first recorded c. 1200.
The oldest undisputed evidence for hunting dates to the Early Pleistocene, consistent with the emergence and early dispersal of Homo erectus about 1.7 million years ago (Acheulean).. While it is undisputed that Homo erectus were hunters, the importance of this for the emergence of Homo erectus from its australopithecine ancestors, including the production of and eventually the control of fire, is emphasised in the so-called "hunting hypothesis" and de-emphasised in scenarios that stress omnivory and social interaction.
There is no direct evidence for hunting predating Homo erectus, in either Homo habilis or in Australopithecus. The early hominidae ancestors of humans were probably or , with a partially carnivorous diet from scavenging rather than hunting. Evidence for australopithecine meat consumption was presented in the 1990s.1992 trace element studies of the strontium/calcium ratios in Paranthropus fossils suggested the possibility of animal consumption, as did a 1994 using stable carbon isotopic analysis. It has nevertheless often been assumed that at least occasional hunting behaviour may have been present well before the emergence of Homo.This can be argued on the basis of comparison with chimpanzees, the closest extant relatives of humans, who also engage in hunting, indicating that the behavioural trait may have been present in the Chimpanzee–human last common ancestor as early as 5 million years ago. The common chimpanzee ( Pan troglodytes) regularly engages in troop predation behaviour, where bands of beta males are led by an alpha male. ( Pan paniscus) have also been observed to occasionally engage in group hunting, although more rarely than Pan troglodytes, mainly subsisting on a frugivorous diet. Indirect evidence for Oldowan era hunting, by early Homo or late Australopithecus, has been presented in a 2009 study based on an Oldowan site in southwestern Kenya.Plummer, T.W., Bishop, L., Ditchfield, P., Kingston, J., Ferraro, J., Hertel, F. & D. Braun (2009). "The environmental context of Oldowan hominin activities at Kanjera South, Kenya". In: Hovers, E. & D. Braun (eds.), Interdisciplinary Approaches to Understanding the Oldowan, Springer, Dordrecht, pp. 149–60. Tom Plummer, "The Hard Stuff of Culture: Oldowan Archaeology at Kanjera South, Kenya" , Popular Archaeology, June 2012.
Louis Binford (1986) criticised the idea that early hominids and early humans were hunters. On the basis of the analysis of the skeletal remains of the consumed animals, he concluded that hominids and early humans were mostly scavengers, not hunters, Blumenschine (1986) proposed the idea of confrontational scavenging, which involves challenging and scaring off other they have made a kill, which he suggests could have been the leading method of obtaining protein-rich meat by early humans.Blumenschine, Robert J. (1986) Early hominid scavenging opportunities: Implications of carcass availability in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro ecosystems. Oxford, England: B.A.R.
Stone spearheads dated as early as 500,000 years ago were found in South Africa.Monte Morin, "Stone-tipped spear may have much earlier origin", Los Angeles Times, 16 November 2012 Wood does not preserve well, however, and Craig Stanford, a primatologist and professor of anthropology at the University of Southern California, has suggested that the discovery of spear use by chimpanzees probably means that early humans used wooden spears as well, perhaps, five million years ago.Rick Weiss, "Chimps Observed Making Their Own Weapons" , The Washington Post, 22 February 2007 The earliest dated find of surviving wooden hunting dates to the very end of the Lower Paleolithic, just before 300,000 years ago. The Schöningen spears, found in 1976 in Germany, are associated with Homo heidelbergensis. [5] .
The hunting hypothesis sees the emergence of behavioral modernity in the Middle Paleolithic as directly related to hunting, including Mating, the establishment of language, culture, and religion, mythology and animal sacrifice. Sociologist David Nibert of Wittenberg University argues that the emergence of the organized hunting of animals undermined the communal, egalitarian nature of early human societies, with the status of women and less powerful males declining as the status of men quickly became associated with their success at hunting, which also increased human violence within these societies. However, 9000-year-old remains of a female hunter along with a toolkit of projectile points and animal processing implements were discovered at the Andes site of Wilamaya Patjxa, Puno District in Peru.
In some locations, such as Australia, humans are thought to have played a very significant role in the extinction of the Australian megafauna that was widespread prior to human occupation.
Hunting was a crucial component of hunter-gatherer societies before the domestication of livestock and the dawn of agriculture, beginning about 11,000 years ago in some parts of the world. In addition to the spear, developed during the Upper Paleolithic include the atlatl (a spear-thrower; before 30,000 years ago) and the bow (18,000 years ago). By the Mesolithic, Hunting strategy had diversified with the development of these more far-reaching weapons and the domestication of the dog about 15,000 years ago. Evidence puts the earliest known mammoth hunting in Asia with spears to approximately 16,200 years ago.
Many species of animals have been hunted throughout history. One theory is that in North America and Eurasia, reindeer "may well be the species of single greatest importance in the entire anthropological literature on hunting""In North America and Eurasia the species has long been an important resource—in many areas the most important resource—for peoples inhabiting the northern Taiga and tundra regions. Known human dependence on caribou/wild reindeer has a long history, beginning in the Middle Pleistocene (Banfield 1961:170; Kurtén 1968:170) and continuing to the present. … The caribou/wild reindeer is thus an animal that has been a major resource for humans throughout a tremendous geographic area and across a time span of tens of thousands of years." (see also Reindeer Age), although the varying importance of different species depended on the geographic location.
Mesolithic hunter-gathering lifestyles remained prevalent in some parts of the Americas, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Siberia, as well as all of Australia, until the European Age of Discovery. They still persist in some tribal societies, albeit in rapid decline. Peoples that preserved Paleolithic hunting-gathering until the recent past include some indigenous peoples of the Amazonas (Aché), some Central and Southern African (San people), some peoples of New Guinea (Fayu people), the Mlabri people of Thailand and Laos, the Vedda people of Sri Lanka, and a handful of uncontacted peoples. In Africa, one of the last remaining hunter-gatherer tribes are the Hadza people of Tanzania.
Hunting is still vital in marginal climates, especially those unsuited for pastoral uses or for agriculture. For example, Inuit in the Arctic trap and hunt animals for clothing and use the skins of Marine mammal to make , clothing, and footwear.
On ancient reliefs, especially from Mesopotamia, kings are often depicted by sculptors as hunters of big game such as lions and are often portrayed hunting from a war chariot - early examples of royalty symbolically and militaristically engaging in hunting as "the sport of kings". The cultural and psychological importance of hunting in ancient societies is represented by deities such as Horned God Cernunnos and Lunar deity of classical antiquity, the Greek Artemis or Roman Diana. are often related to hunting, and mythological association of prey species with a divinity could be reflected in hunting restrictions such as a Nature reserve surrounding a temple. Euripides' tale of Artemis and Actaeon, for example, may be seen as a caution against disrespect of prey or against impudent boasting. With the domestication of the dog, birds of prey, and the ferret, various forms of animal-aided hunting developed, including Medieval hunting (scent hound hunting, such as fox hunting), coursing (sight hound hunting), falconry, and ferreting. While these are all associated with medieval hunting, over time, various were selected by humans for very precise tasks during the hunt, reflected in such names as Pointing breed and "setter".
When hunting moved from a subsistence activity to a selective one, two trends emerged:
The meaning of the word game in Middle English evolved to include an animal which is hunted. As the domestication of animals for meat grew, subsistence hunting remained among the lowest classes; however, the stylised pursuit of game in European societies became a luxury. Dangerous hunting, such as for lions or , often done on horseback or from a chariot, had a function similar to tournaments and manly sports. Hunting ranked as an honourable, somewhat competitive pastime to help the aristocracy practice skills of war in times of peace.
Machiavelli provides a rationale, if not the origin, of noble hunting:
(2024). 9780822381570, Duke University Press. ISBN 9780822381570
In most parts of medieval Europe, the upper class obtained the sole rights to hunt in certain areas of a feudal territory. Game in these areas was used as a source of food and furs, often provided via professional huntsmen, but it was also expected to provide a form of recreation for the aristocracy. The importance of this proprietary view of game can be seen in the Robin Hood legends, in which one of the primary charges against the outlaws is that they "hunt the King's deer". In contrast, settlers in Anglophone colonies gloried democratically in hunting for all.
In medieval Europe, hunting was considered by Johannes Scotus Eriugena to be part of the set of mechanic arts.In his commentary on Martianus Capella's early 5th-century work, The Marriage of Philology and Mercury, one of the main sources for medieval reflection on the liberal arts.
Dogs today are used to find, chase, retrieve, and sometimes kill game. Dogs allow humans to pursue and kill prey that would otherwise be very difficult or dangerous to hunt. Different breeds of specifically bred hunting dog are used for different types of hunting. Waterfowl are commonly hunted using retrieving dogs such as the Labrador Retriever, the Golden Retriever, the Chesapeake Bay Retriever, the Brittany Spaniel, and other similar breeds. Game birds are flushed out using flushing such as the English Springer Spaniel, the various and similar breeds.
The hunting of wild mammals in England and Wales with dogs was banned under the Hunting Act 2004. The wild mammals include fox, hare, deer and mink. There are, however, exceptions in the Act. Nevertheless, there have been numerous attempts on behalf of activists, pressure groups, etc. to revoke the act over the last two decades.
In many pagan religions, specific rituals are conducted before or after a hunt; the rituals done may vary according to the species hunted or the season the hunt is taking place. Often a hunting ground, or the hunt for one or more species, was reserved or prohibited in the context of a temple cult. In Roman religion, Diana is the goddess of the hunt.
Jainism teaches followers to have tremendous respect for all of life. Prohibitions for hunting and meat eating are the fundamental conditions for being a Jain.
Buddhism's first precept is the respect for all sentient life. The general approach by all Buddhists is to avoid killing any living animals. Gautama Buddha explained the issue by saying "all fear death; comparing others with oneself, one should neither kill nor cause to kill."
In Sikhism, only meat obtained from hunting, or slaughtered with the Jhatka is permitted. The Sikh gurus, especially Guru Hargobind and Guru Gobind Singh were ardent hunters. Many old Sikh Rehatnamas like Prem Sumarag, recommend hunting wild boar and deer. However, among modern Sikhs, the practice of hunting has died down; some even saying that all meat is forbidden.
Ferraris gives it as the general sense of canonists that hunting is allowed to clerics if it be indulged in rarely and for sufficient cause, as necessity, utility or "honest" recreation, and with that moderation which is becoming to the ecclesiastical state. Ziegler, however, thinks that the interpretation of the canonists is not in accordance with the letter or spirit of the laws of the church.
Nevertheless, although a distinction between lawful and unlawful hunting is undoubtedly permissible, it is certain that a bishop can absolutely prohibit all hunting to the clerics of his diocese, as was done by at Milan, Avignon, Liège, Cologne, and elsewhere. Benedict XIV declared that such synodal decrees are not too severe, as an absolute prohibition of hunting is more conformable to the Canon law. In practice, therefore, the synodal statutes of various localities must be consulted to discover whether they allow quiet hunting or prohibit it altogether. Small-scale hunting as a family or subsistence farming activity is recognised by Pope Francis in his encyclical letter, Laudato si', as a legitimate and valuable aspect of employment within the food production system.Cardinal Peter Turkson, Laudato Si and the Vocation to Agriculture: A Prince of the Church explains the connection, published in Catholic Rural Life Magazine, Summer 2015, accessed 29 January 2024
Hunting is not forbidden in Jewish law, although there is an aversion to it. The great 18th-century authority Rabbi Yechezkel Landau after a study concluded although "hunting would not be considered cruelty to animals insofar as the animal is generally killed quickly and not tortured... There is an unseemly element in it, namely cruelty." The other issue is that hunting can be dangerous and Judaism places an extreme emphasis on the value of human life.
Islamic Sharia permits hunting of lawful animals and birds if they cannot be easily caught and slaughtered. However, this is only for the purpose of food and not for trophy hunting.
Hunters are usually tourists, accompanied by hunting license and highly Regulation professional hunters, local guides, skinners, and porters in more difficult terrains. A special safari type is the solo-safari, where all the license acquiring, stalking, preparation, and outfitting is done by the hunter himself.
Regional social norms are generally antagonistic to hunting, while a few , such as the Bishnoi, lay special emphasis on the conservation of particular species, such as the antelope. India's Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 bans the killing of all wild animals. However, the Chief Wildlife Warden may, if satisfied that any wild animal from a specified list has become dangerous to human life or is so disabled or diseased as to be beyond recovery, permit any person to hunt such an animal. In this case, the body of any wild animal killed or wounded becomes government property.
The practice among the soldiers in British India during the 1770s of going out to hunt , a shorebird considered extremely challenging for hunters due to its alertness, camouflaging colour and erratic flight behavior, is believed to be the origin of the modern word for sniper, as snipe-hunters needed to be stealthy in addition to having tracking skills and marksmanship. The term was used in the nineteenth century, and had become common usage by the First World War.
These forms of hunting have been controversial in the UK. Animal welfare supporters believe that hunting causes unnecessary suffering to foxes, horses, and hounds. Proponents argue that the activity is a historical tradition. Using dogs to chase wild mammals was made illegal in February 2005 by the Hunting Act 2004; there were a number of exemptions (under which the activity may not be illegal) in the act for hunting with hounds, but no exemptions at all for hare-coursing.
A similar tradition, , exists in Spain.
Gun usage in hunting is typically regulated by game category, area within the state, and time period. Regulations for big-game hunting often specify a minimum caliber or muzzle energy for . The use of is often banned for safety reasons in areas with high population densities or limited Terrain. Regulations may also limit or ban the use of lead in ammunition because of environmental concerns. Specific seasons for bow hunting or Muzzle-loader Black powder guns are often established to limit competition with hunters using more effective weapons.
Hunting in the United States is not associated with any particular class or culture; a 2006 poll showed seventy-eight per cent of Americans supported legal hunting, Results from a 2006 poll (813 people were polled) done by Responsive Management although relatively few Americans actually hunt. At the beginning of the 21st century, just six per cent of Americans hunted. Southerners in states along the eastern seaboard hunted at a rate of five per cent, slightly below the national average, and while hunting was more common in other parts of the South at nine per cent, these rates did not surpass those of the Plains states, where twelve per cent of Midwesterners hunted. Hunting in other areas of the country fell below the national average.National statistics from US Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service and US Department of Commerce, US Census Bureau, 2001 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife Associated Recreation, 27. Overall, in the 1996–2006 period, the number of hunters over the age of sixteen declined by ten per cent, a drop attributable to a number of factors including habitat loss and changes in recreation habits.Jackson, Patrick. Number of hunters is dwindling—Urbanization and cultural changes discourage newcomers to the sport .
The principles of the fair chaseInterpretations of the Fair Chase can be found on the web sites of various hunter's organizations, such as the Boone and Crockett Club and Hunt Fair Chase . have been a part of the American hunting tradition for over one hundred years. The role of the hunter-conservationist, popularised by Theodore Roosevelt, and perpetuated by Roosevelt's formation of the Boone and Crockett Club, has been central to the development of the modern fair chase tradition. Beyond Fair Chase: The Ethic and Tradition of Hunting, a book by Jim Posewitz, describes fair chase:
"Fundamental to ethical hunting is the idea of fair chase. This concept addresses the balance between the hunter and the hunted. It is a balance that allows hunters to occasionally succeed while animals generally avoid being taken."
When Internet hunting was introduced in 2005, allowing people to hunt over the Internet using remotely controlled guns, the practice was widely criticised by hunters as violating the principles of fair chase. As a representative of the National Rifle Association of America (NRA) explained, "The NRA has always maintained that fair chase, being in the field with your firearm or bow, is an important element of hunting tradition. Sitting at your desk in front of your computer, clicking at a mouse, has nothing to do with hunting."Humane Society Wildlife Abuse Campaign, Fact Sheet on Internet Hunting
Animals such as blackbuck, nilgai, axis deer, fallow deer, , barasingha, gazelle and many other exotic game species can now be found on and in Texas, where they were introduced for sport hunting. These hunters can be found paying in excess of $10,000 to take trophy animals on these controlled ranches.
In some cases, hunting actually can increase the population of predators such as coyotes by removing territorial bounds that would otherwise be established, resulting in excess neighbouring migrations into an area, thus artificially increasing the population. Hunting advocates assert that hunting reduces intraspecific competition for food and shelter, reducing mortality among the remaining animals. Some assert that (re)introducing would achieve the same end with greater efficiency and less negative effect, such as introducing significant amounts of free lead into the environment and food chain.
In the United States, wildlife managers are frequently part of hunting regulatory and licensing bodies, where they help to set rules on the number, manner and conditions in which game may be hunted.
Management agencies sometimes rely on hunting to control specific animal populations, as has been the case with deer in North America. These hunts may sometimes be carried out by professional shooters, although others may include amateur hunters. Many US city and local governments hire professional and amateur hunters each year to reduce populations of animals such as deer that are becoming hazardous in a restricted area, such as neighbourhood parks and metropolitan open spaces.
A large part of managing populations involves managing the number and, sometimes, the size or age of animals harvested so as to ensure the sustainability of the population. Tools that are frequently used to control harvest are bag limits and season closures, although gear restrictions such as archery-only seasons are becoming increasingly popular in an effort to reduce hunter success rates in countries that rely on bag limits per hunter instead of per area.
Where bag limits are used, there can be daily or seasonal bag limits; for example, ducks can often be harvested at a rate of six per hunter per day. Big game, like moose, most often have a seasonal bag limit of one animal per hunter. Bag limits may also regulate the size, sex, or age of animal that a hunter can kill. In many cases, bag limits are designed to allocate harvest among the hunting population more equitably rather than to protect animal populations, as protecting the population would necessitate regional density-dependent maximum bags.
A scientific study in the journal, Biological Conservation, states that trophy hunting is of "major importance to conservation in Africa by creating economic incentives for conservation over vast areas, including areas which may be unsuitable for alternative wildlife-based land uses such as photographic ecotourism." However, another study states that less than 3% of a trophy hunters' expenditures reach the local level, meaning that the economic incentive and benefit is "minimal, particularly when we consider the vast areas of land that hunting concessions occupy."
Financial incentives from trophy hunting effectively more than double the land area that is used for wildlife conservation, relative to what would be conserved relying on national parks alone according to Biological Conservation, although local communities usually derive no more than 18 cents per hectare from trophy hunting.
Trophy hunting has been considered essential for providing economic incentives to conserve large carnivores according to research studies in Conservation Biology, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Wildlife Conservation by Sustainable Use, (2024). 9789401057738 ISBN 9789401057738 and Animal Conservation. Studies by the Centre for Responsible Tourism and the IUCN state that ecotourism, which includes more than hunting, is a superior economic incentive, generating twice the revenue per acre and 39 times more permanent employment. At the cross-section of trophy hunting, ecotourism and conservation is green hunting, a trophy hunting alternative where hunters pay to dart animals that need to be tranquilized for conservation projects.
The U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources in 2016 concluded that trophy hunting may be contributing to the extinction of certain animals. Animal welfare organizations, including the IFAW, claim that trophy hunting is a key factor in the "silent extinction" of giraffes.
According to a national survey that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducts every five years, fewer people are hunting, even as population rises. National Public Radio reported, a graph shows 2016 statistics, that only about 5 per cent of Americans, 16 years old and older, actually hunt, which is half of what it was 50 years ago. The decline in popularity of hunting is expected to accelerate over the next decade, which threatens how US will pay for conservation.
There is also debate about the extent to which trophy hunting benefits the local economy. Hunters pay substantial fees to the game outfitters and hunting guides which contributes to the local economy and provides value to animals that would otherwise be seen as competition for grazing, livestock, and crops.Martin, Glen. The lion, once king of vast African savanna, suffers alarming decline in population , San Francisco Chronicle, 6 October 2005. Retrieved 30 October 2007. However, the argument is disputed by animal welfare organizations and other opponents of trophy hunting.League Against Cruel Sports. Trophy Hunting July 2017 It is argued that the animals are worth more to the community for ecotourism than hunting.
In the United Kingdom, the game hunting of birds as an industry is said to be extremely important to the rural economy. The Cobham Report of 1997 suggested it to be worth around £700 million, and hunting and shooting lobby groups claimed it to be worth over a billion pounds less than ten years later.
Hunting also has a significant financial impact in the United States, with many companies specialising in hunting sports equipment or speciality tourism. Many different technologies have been created to assist hunters. Today's hunters come from a broad range of economic, social, and cultural backgrounds. In 2001, over thirteen million hunters averaged eighteen days hunting, and spent over $20.5 billion on their sport.Why You're Wrong About the Right: Behind the Myths: The Surprising Truth About Conservatives. p. 137. By S.E. Cupp & Brett Joshpe Published by: Simon and Schuster, 2009 In the US, proceeds from hunting licenses contribute to state game management programs, including preservation of wildlife habitat.
Hunting contributes to a portion of caloric intake of people and may have positive impacts on greenhouse gas emissions by avoidance of utilization of meat raised under industrial methods.
Left: Expanded bullet of the same calibre with exposed lead core]] Lead bullets that miss their target or remain in an unretrieved carcass could become a toxicant in the environment but lead in ammunition because of its metallic form has a lower solubility and higher resistance to corrosion than other forms of lead making it hardly available to biological systems. Waterfowl or other birds may ingest the lead and poison themselves with the neurotoxicant, but studies have demonstrated that effects of lead in ammunition are negligible on animal population size and growth. Since 1991, US federal law forbids lead shot in waterfowl hunts, and 30 states have some type of restriction.
In December 2014, a federal appeals court denied a lawsuit by environmental groups that the EPA must use the Toxic Substances Control Act to regulate lead in shells and cartridges. The groups sought EPA to regulate "spent lead", yet the court found EPA could not regulate spent lead without also regulating cartridges and shells.
Since 1934, the sale of Federal Duck Stamps has generated $670 million, and helped to purchase or lease of habitat. The stamps serve as a license to hunt migratory birds, an entrance pass for all National Wildlife Refuge areas, and are also considered collectors items often purchased for aesthetic reasons outside of the hunting and birding communities. Although non-hunters buy a significant number of Duck Stamps, eighty-seven per cent of their sales are contributed by hunters. Distribution of funds is managed by the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission (MBCC).
However, the illegal hunting of rhinoceros for their horns is highly damaging to the population and is currently growing globally, 'Global surge' in rhino poaching BBC. 1 December 2009 with 1004 being killed in South Africa alone according to the most recent estimate. The White Rhino (along with the other 4 rhino species) are poached due to beliefs that the Rhinos horns can be used to cure Cancer, Arthritis and other diseases and illnesses, even though they are scientifically proven wrong.
In contrast, Botswana in 2012 banned trophy hunting following a precipitous wildlife decline. The numbers of antelope plummeted across Botswana, with a resultant decline in predator numbers, while elephant numbers remained stable and hippopotamus numbers rose. According to the government of Botswana, trophy hunting is at least partly to blame for this, but many other factors, such as poaching, drought and habitat loss are also to blame. Uganda recently did the same, arguing that "the share of benefits of sport hunting were lopsided and unlikely to deter poaching or improve Uganda's capacity to manage the wildlife reserves." In 2020, Botswana reopened trophy hunting on public lands.
Although deforestation and forest degradation have long been considered the most significant threats to tropical biodiversity, across Southeast Asia (Northeast India, Indochina, Sundaland, Philippines) substantial areas of natural habitat have few wild animals (>1 kg), bar a few hunting‐tolerant species.
Whether hunters try to justify their killing by citing human deaths caused by wild animals, by making conservationist claims, by claiming that it's acceptable to hunt as long as the animals' bodies are eaten, or simply because of the pleasure it brings them, the fact remains that hunting is morally unacceptable if we consider the interests of nonhuman animals. Hunted animals endure fear and pain, and then are deprived of their lives. Understanding the injustices of speciesism and the interests of nonhuman animals makes it clear that human pleasure cannot justify nonhuman animals' pain.
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