Professional hunter

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.

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.

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.

A photograph of Paul Childerley walking in the woods with a rifle
Paul Childerley, a British professional stalker and gamekeeper
Professional hunter (left) with a guest hunter (right) stalking African big-game in the Kalahari Desert , Namibia
Professional stalker Niall Rowantree standing next to a red deer stag shot on Ardnamurchan estate in the Scottish Highlands
American bison were hunted almost to extinction in the late 19th century primarily by market hunters and were reduced to a few hundred by the mid-1880s [ 23 ]
Aerial shooting of feral pigs from a helicopter by the Texas Wildlife Services