Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior

Living Edition
| Editors: Jennifer Vonk, Todd Shackelford

Hunting

Living reference work entry
First Online:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1357-1
  • 25 Downloads
How to cite

Synonyms

Trapping; Sporting

Definition

Hunting can be defined as the pursuit of wild animals with the intent of killing or trapping them.

Introduction

Up until the mid-twentieth century, it was widely accepted that the earliest of hominids actively hunted wild animals for sustenance and that these animals made up a significant proportion of their diets. This widespread view was questioned by Richard B. Lee who played a major role in theorizing that this was not necessarily the case for all hominids, particularly those existing in more temperate latitudes. Following 15 months of fieldwork in 1968, Lee demonstrated the reality of a largely plant-based diet in the!Kung Bushmen, a marginalized group which inhabits the semiarid Kalahari deserts of Botswana. Lee suggested that it was reasonable to consider the possibility that the prehistoric “hunter” diet was reflected in that of the!Kung Bushmen’s, which was made up of between 30% and 40% meat.

In the late 1980s, Lee’s hypotheses were...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

References

  1. Andrey, R. (Ed.). (1976). The hunting hypothesis. In The hunting hypothesis: A personal conclusion concerning the evolutionary nature of man (pp. 1–5). London: Macmillan Publishing Company.Google Scholar
  2. Baize, S., Pannetier, D., Oestereich, L., Rieger, T., Koivogui, L., Magassouba, N. F., Soropogui, B., Sow, M. S., Keïta, S., De Clerck, H., et al. (2014). Emergence of Zaire Ebola virus disease in Guinea. New England Journal of Medicine, 371(15), 1418–1425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. Bennett, E. L., Blencowe, E., Brandon, K., Brown, D., Burn, R. W., Cowlishaw, G., Davies, G., Dublin, H., Fa, J. E., Milner-Gulland, E. J., Robinson, J. G., Rowcliffe, J. M., Underwood, F. M., & Wilkie, D. S. (2006). Hunting for consensus: Reconciling bushmeat harvest, conservation, and development policy in west and Central Africa. Conservation Biology, 21(3), 884–887.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  4. Bersacola, E., Svensson, M. S., Bearder, S. K., Mills, M., & Nijman, V. (2014). Hunted in Angola surveying the bushmeat trade. Swara Conserv, 38, 31–36.Google Scholar
  5. Binford, L. (1986). Human ancestors: Changing views of their behavior. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 4(4), 292–327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  6. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2016). 2014–2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa: Case Counts.. Retrieved from: https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/history/2014-2016-outbreak/case-counts.html.
  7. Chivian, E., & Bernstein, A. (2008). How our health depends on biodiversity sustaining life: How human health depends on biodiversity. In Center for health and the global environment. Harvard Press.Google Scholar
  8. Cooney, R., Roe, D., Dublin, H., Phelps, J., Wilkie, D., Keane, A., Travers, H., Skinner, D., Challender, D. S. W., Allan, J. R., & Biggs, D. (2017). From poachers to protectors: Engaging local communities in solutions to illegal wildlife trade. Conservation Letters, 367–374.  https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. Crosmary, W. G., Loveridge, A. J., Ndaimani, H., Lebel, S., Booth, V., Cote, S. D., & Fritz, H. (2013). Trophy hunting in Africa: Long-term trends in antelope horn size. Animal Conservation, 16(6), 648–660.  https://doi.org/10.1111/acv.12043.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. Crosmary, W. G., Cote, S. D., & Fritz, H. (2015). The assessment of the role of trophy hunting in wildlife conservation. Animal Conservation, 18, 136–137.  https://doi.org/10.1111/acv.12205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  11. De Merode, E., & Cowlishaw, G. U. Y. (2006). Species protection, the changing informal economy, and the politics of access to the bushmeat trade in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Conservation Biology, 20(4), 1262–1271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. Du Saussay, C. (1984). Legislation on wildlife and protected areas in Africa. Rome: FAO.Google Scholar
  13. Fa, J.E. & Peres, C.A. (2001). Game vertebrate extraction in African and Neotropical forests: An intercontinental comparison (Conservation Biology Series, pp. 203–241). Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.Google Scholar
  14. Fisher, B., & Christopher, T. (2007). Poverty and biodiversity: Measuring the overlap of human poverty and the biodiversity hotspots. Ecological Economics, 62(1), 93–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  15. Gao, Y., & Clark, S. G. (2014). Elephant ivory trade in China: Trends and drivers. Biology Conservation, 180, 23–30.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2014.09.020.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  16. Hewes, G. W., Andrew, R. J., Carini, L., Choe, H., Gardner, R. A., Kortlandt, A., Krantz, G. S., McBride, G., Nottebohm, F., Pfeiffer, J., Rumbaugh, D. G., Steklis, H. D., Raliegh, M. J., Stopa, R., Suzuki, A., Washburn, S. L., & Wescott, R. W. (1973). Primate communication and the gestural origin of language. Current Anthropology, 14, 1–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  17. Humavindu, M. N., & Barnes, J. L. (2003). Trophy hunting in the Namibian economy: An assessment. South African Journal of Wildlife Research, 33(2), 65–70.Google Scholar
  18. Knell, R. J., & Martínez-Ruiz, C. (2017). Selective harvest focused on sexual signal traits can lead to extinction under directional environmental change. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 284(1868), 20171788.  https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.1788.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  19. Lee, R. B. (1968). What hunters do for a living, or how to make out on scarce resources. In R. B. Lee & I. DeVore (Eds.), Man the hunter. Chicago: Aldine.Google Scholar
  20. Lindsey, P. A. (2008). Trophy hunting in sub-Saharan Africa: Economic scale and conservation significance. Best Practices in Sustainable Hunting, 1, 41–47.Google Scholar
  21. Loibooki, M., Hofer, H., Campbell, K. L. I., & East, M. L. (2002). Bushmeat hunting by communities adjacent to the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania: The importance of livestock ownership and alternative sources of protein and income. Environmental Conservation, 29(3), 391–398.  https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892902000279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  22. Lyons, S. K., Smith, F. A., & Brown, J. H. (2004). Of mice, mastodons and men: human-mediated extinctions on four continents. Evolutionary Ecology Research, 6, 339–358.Google Scholar
  23. Milner-Gulland, E. J., & Bennett, E. L. (2003). Wild meat: The bigger picture. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 18(7), 351–357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  24. Narr, K. J. (2008). Prehistoric religion. Britannica Online Encyclopedia.Google Scholar
  25. Nekaris, B. K. A., Campbell, N., Coggins, T. G., Rode, E. J., & Nijman, V. (2013). Tickled to death: Analysing public perceptions of ‘cute’ videos of threatened species (slow lorises – Nycticebus spp.) on web 2.0 sites. PLoS One, 8(7), e69215.  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0069215.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentralGoogle Scholar
  26. Nelson, F., Lindsey, P., & Blame, G. (2013). Trophy hunting and lion conservation: A question of governance? Oryx, 47(4), 501–509.  https://doi.org/10.1017/S003060531200035X.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  27. Nijman, V. (2017). Orangutan trade, confiscations, and lack of prosecutions in Indonesia. American Journal of Primatology, 79(11), 22652.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  28. Nijman, V., & Healy, A. (2016). Present-day international primate trade in historical context. In S. A. Wich & A. J. Marshall (Eds.), An introduction to primate conservation (pp. 129–142). Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  29. Pantel, S. B., & Chin, Y. (2009). Proceedings of the workshop on trade and conservation of pangolins native to south and Southeast Asia. TRAFFIC Southeast Asia. Petaling Jaya, Selangor.Google Scholar
  30. Reynolds, V. & Bettinger, T. (2008). Guidelines for conservation through community involvement. Position Statement of the International Primatological Society.Google Scholar
  31. Ripple, W. J., Abernethy, K., Betts, M. G., Chapron, G., Dirzo, R., Galetti, M., Levi, T., Lindsey, P. A., Macdonald, D. W., Machovina, B., Newsome, T. M., Peres, C. A., Wallach, A. D., Wolf, C., & Young, H. (2016). Bushmeat hunting and extinction risk to the world’s mammals. Royal Society Open Science, 3, 160498.  https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160498.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentralGoogle Scholar
  32. Smith, K. H. (2018). Sudan–Death of an iconic rhino. Pachyderm, 59, 116–118.Google Scholar
  33. Speth, J. D. (1989). Early hominid hunting and scavenging: The role of meat as an energy source. Journal of Human Evolution, 18, 329–343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  34. Svensson, M. S., & Friant, S. C. (2014). Threats from trading and hunting of pottos and angwantibos in Africa resemble those faced by slow lorises in Asia. Endangered Species Research, 23, 107–114.  https://doi.org/10.3354/esr00572.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  35. WHO Ebola Response Team. (2014). Ebola virus disease in West Africa – the first 9 months of the epidemic and forward projections. New England Journal of Medicine, 371(16), 1481–1495.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  36. Wilcox, A. S., & Nambu, D. M. (2007). Wildlife hunting practices and bushmeat dynamics of the Banyangi and Mbo people of southwestern Cameroon. Biological Conservation, 134(2), 251–261.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2006.08.016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  37. Wittemyer, G., Northrup, J. M., Blanc, J., Douglas-Hamilton, I., Omondi, P., & Burnham, K. P. (2014). Illegal killing for ivory drives global decline in African elephants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(36), 13117–13121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  38. Wright, E. M., Bhammar, H. M., Gonzalez Velosa, A. M., & Sobrevila, C. (2016). Analysis of international funding to tackle illegal wildlife trade. Washington DC: World Bank Group.Google Scholar
  39. Zeder, M. A. (2012). The domestication of animals. Journal of Anthropological Research, 68(2), 161–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Oxford Brookes UniversityOxfordUK

Section editors and affiliations

  • Peggy Mason
    • 1
  • Yuri Sugano
    • 2
  1. 1.University of ChicagoChicagoUSA
  2. 2.NeurobiologyUniversity of ChicagoChicagoUnited States of America