Hunting

Marine mammals such as whales and pinnipeds are also targets of hunting, both recreationally and commercially, often with heated controversies regarding the morality, ethics and legality of such practices.

[32] However, 9000-year-old remains of a female hunter along with a toolkit of projectile points and animal processing implements were discovered at the Andean site of Wilamaya Patjxa, Puno District in Peru.

[33] Evidence exists that hunting may have been one of the multiple, or possibly main, environmental factors leading to the Holocene extinction of megafauna and their replacement by smaller herbivores.

[36][37][38] 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.

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.

The supplementary meat and materials from hunting included protein, bone for implements, sinew for cordage, fur, feathers, rawhide and leather used in clothing.

[44] The cultural and psychological importance of hunting in ancient societies is represented by deities such as the horned god Cernunnos and lunar goddesses of classical antiquity, the Greek Artemis or Roman Diana.

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.

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".

The Fourth Council of the Lateran, held under Pope Innocent III, decreed (canon xv): "We interdict hunting or hawking to all clerics."

[57] 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.

[57] 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.

All native animals are protected by law, and certain species such as kangaroos and ducks can be hunted by licensed shooters but only under a special permit on public lands during open seasons.

Added to that, there is a thriving and very lucrative black market for poached wild game (sold and enthusiastically purchased as expensive luxury delicacies) and the numbers of commercial poachers in operation is unknown but presumed to be fairly high.

As a result, the populations of the five major mammalian game species (red-rumped agouti, lowland paca, nine-banded armadillo, collared peccary and red brocket deer) are thought to be relatively low when compared to less-hunted regions in nearby mainland South America (although scientifically conducted population studies are only just recently being conducted as of 2013[update]).

By some time in the mid 20th century another extirpation due to over-hunting occurred in Trinidad with its population of horned screamer (a large game bird).

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.

[97][98][99][100] Illegal hunting and harvesting of wild species contrary to local and international conservation and wildlife management laws is called poaching.

[118] In the 19th century, southern and central European sport hunters often pursued game only for a trophy, usually the head or pelt of an animal, which was then displayed as a sign of prowess.

"[121] 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.

[123][126] Studies by the Centre for Responsible Tourism[127] 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.

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.

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.

[146] 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.

[149] However, excessive hunting and poachers have also contributed heavily to the endangerment, extirpation and extinction of many animals, such as the quagga, the great auk, Steller's sea cow, the thylacine, the bluebuck, the Arabian oryx, the Caspian and Javan tigers, the markhor, the Sumatran rhinoceros, the bison, the North American cougar, the Altai argali sheep, the Asian elephant and many more, primarily for commercial sale or sport.

[167] In 1937, American hunters successfully lobbied the US Congress to pass the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act, which placed an eleven per cent tax on all hunting equipment.

[176] The Journal of International Wildlife Law and Policy cites that the legalization of white rhinoceros hunting in South Africa motivated private landowners to reintroduce the species onto their lands.

[177] However, the illegal hunting of rhinoceros for their horns is highly damaging to the population and is currently growing globally,[178] with 1004 being killed in South Africa alone according to the most recent estimate.

The study furthermore states that the cessation of hunting could cause wildlife to be severely harmed, rural property values to fall, and the incentive of landowners to maintain natural habitats to diminish.

[186] 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.