WCS 3-Sentence Science

Unsustainable Hunting Quickly Leads to a Protein Cliff

October 4, 2019

Each year, Wildlife Conservation Society scientists publish more than 300 peer-reviewed studies and papers. “WCS 3-Sentence Science” is a regular tip-sheet — in bite sized helpings — of some of this published work.

Here we present work by WCS’s David Wilkie and Michelle Wieland on the impact of unsustainable hunting on local nutrition and income needs.

1. Researchers used modeling techniques from a tropical forest area in Gabon to explore how hunter capture rates would need to change over time to halt unsustainable hunting and to maximize the nutritional and economic value of wildlife as a source of food and income over the long term.
2. They found that unsustainable hunting generates more biomass than sustainable hunting but only for the first 1 to 3 years after which offtake dwindles rapidly.
3. Achieving sustainable hunting will require that hunters reduce their offtake for 3–13 years until depleted populations recover, which may be unlikely unless they have access to alternative sources of food and income.

Study and Journal: “Unsustainable vs. Sustainable Hunting for Food in Gabon: Modeling Short- and Long-Term Gains and Losses” from Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
WCS Co-Author(s): David Wilkie (Lead), WCS Global Conservation Programs; Michelle Wieland, WCS DRC Program

For more information, contact: Stephen Sautner, 718–220–3682, ssautner@wcs.org.