Publications

New research investigates how hunting could help mitigate habitat loss due to increasing food demands. Scientists quantified reported wildlife harvests of during the 2024–2025 hunting season to estimate land potentially spared from raising an equivalent amount of cattle for meat consumption. Results indicated that though wild harvests will not end agricultural land conversion, wild meat for consumption is an important food source and could spare thousands of square miles of habitat from conversion. Policies that support natural habitats and sustainable use can be crucial conservation management tools.

Hunting in the United States remains an important part of our culture and tradition. Working with state and federal agencies across the United States, we compiled reported harvests of wildlife during the 2019-2020 through 2024-2025 hunting seasons, then quantified the amount of wild meat provided from these harvests and the associated benefits it provides. We estimated that harvests during the 2024-2025 hunting season resulted in almost 223,000 tons of wild meat. This meat provided over 2 billion servings and over 931 million person-days of protein. The estimated replacement cost of this meat was valued at almost $3.3 billion. In addition to benefits previously identified, wild meat from well-managed and sustainable hunting in the United States is also an important contributor to the provisioning of nutritious food and the economy.

Predation and legal harvest are primary sources of cervid mortality. Researchers investigated factors that influenced the magnitude of these factors on cervid species across North America. They found that adult, male, and longer-lived cervids experienced greater human-caused mortality, while juvenile, female, and shorter-lived cervids experienced greater predation. They also found that predation generally decreased in areas with increasing human development which supports the need for well-regulated species-specific harvests in North America, including greater harvests in developed landscapes where predation is a lesser source of mortality.

Legal harvests of wildlife occur throughout North America, where some hunters preferentially target individuals with larger horns, antlers, or body size which has the potential to influence characteristics of wildlife populations. Researchers used records of 6426 legally harvested brown bears from the Kodiak Archipelago, Alaska, to evaluate patterns of selective harvests. They observed an increase in age and size among harvested bears over the 37-year period studied which suggests that current harvest regulations on the Kodiak Archipelago are conservative and associated with sustained availability of older, larger individuals in the harvested population.

Subsistence harvest can have substantial impacts on mammalian biodiversity, yet its effects on the conservation status of mammal species are poorly understood. These authors analyzed trade and use data in species accounts from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List to examine the effects of subsistence harvest on the conservation status of 1723 terrestrial mammal species worldwide. Species harvested for subsistence were more likely to have decreasing population trends. Among five types of subsistence use examined, only two types of use—for food and pets—were associated with declining population trends. Food was the most common subsistence use, affecting more than two-thirds of all mammal species examined. The authors suggest that current harvesting levels of wild mammals for subsistence, especially as food, may contribute to extinction risk because decreasing populations are a precursor to being listed in a threatened IUCN Red List category. However, other factors, such as habitat loss, likely also play a role. Improved harvest management is therefore needed to maintain mammal populations as ecological and food resources.

Understanding sources of mortality is fundamental to effective wildlife management. Analyzing data for more than 600 gray wolves throughout the western Great Lakes, the authors found that legal harvest was the greatest source of mortality in years when harvest was allowed, emphasizing the importance of continued population monitoring and adaptive management. Illegal harvest was the greatest source of recorded mortality overall and was not reduced by federal protection, highlighting the need to enhance enforcement and address socio-political factors influencing public tolerance of wolves.

Looking at more than 1,000 small-scale marine fisheries, representing two-thirds of the global marine small-scale fisheries catch, we identify five global archetypes defined by operational, socioeconomic, technological and post-harvest attributes. We then apply the Five Principles of Sustainable Food and Agriculture, developed by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, as a guiding framework for policy recommendations that link Sustainable Development Goals targets with context-specific needs and apply to each of these archetypes. This approach recognises the multidimensional contributions of small-scale fisheries and offers a low-cost, easy-to-implement solution that supports decision-making in data-limited contexts, particularly in the global south. Additionally, the approach is potentially transferable to small-scale producers in other food sectors, facilitating targeted policymaking for the benefit of millions globally.

Gender data gaps in small-scale sectors, like small-scale fisheries, are both structural and sexist, concealing women’s contributions and impeding actions that would strengthen livelihoods and economic development, food security, and environmental sustainability. Building on lessons from the Illuminating Hidden Harvests initiative, we identify systemic changes and specific indicators needed to fill these gaps. This requires multiple data streams, many of which come from outside fisheries agencies, e.g., government statistical or census organizations, sourced from responsible agencies across multiple areas—economy and environment, governance and support services, and health and nutrition. Closing gender data gaps requires making the policy case and working across agencies to create an enabling institutional environment. Only then can data reflect and respond to the lives of the ~ 500 million people who depend on small-scale fisheries.

New research aims to highlight the relationship between sport hunting and conservation status. After analyzing over 1,600 species on the IUCN Red List, WFI researchers found that sport hunted species were more likely to have a stable or increasing conservation status, that species hunted for food were not more likely to have decreasing population levels in comparison to those that are hunted for food and that generated revenue and nutrients from the hunts went towards supporting community systems. These results indicate that sport hunting may be a key component in sustainable wildlife conservation and preventing habitat loss for wildlife and humans alike.

In the United States, an overabundance of white-tailed deer causes considerable ecosystem damage, economic losses and increased risks to human safety. The frequency of deer-vehicle collisions varies substantially across the nation and researchers wanted to uncover factors that influence occurrences of these collisions. Newly published research illustrates the relationship between the amount of agricultural land and number of deer harvested on deer-vehicle collisions to forge a more accurate understanding of these relationships and how harvests have the potential to reduce them.

Though killing animals is consistent with humans’ ecological predatory role within larger ecosystems, it does not automatically justify the act. To guide and supplement this logical thinking, researchers turn to multiple ethical frameworks. Though these frameworks are often used to argue against it, further research shows that these same frameworks also justify the intentional harvesting of animals as morally permissible in a variety of contexts. Consequently, researchers illustrate that labeling the act as categorically unethical is incorrect and encourage deeper consideration of these ethical arguments.

Food insecurity affects more than 2.3 billion people across the globe. Simultaneously, human-wildlife conflicts have become more common as the human population increases, requiring mitigation of these conflicts. New research suggests that the meat of some wildlife species culled to decrease human-wildlife conflicts can be donated to advance food security as a secondary benefit. 

Small-scale fisheries (SSF) provide at least 40% (37.3 million tons) of global fisheries catches and 2.3 billion people with, on average, 20% of their dietary intake across six key micronutrients essential for human health. Globally, the livelihood of 1 in every 12 people, nearly half of them women, depends at least partly on small-scale fishing, in total generating 44% (US$77.2 billion) of the economic value of all fisheries landed. Regionally, Asian SSF provide fish, support livelihoods and supply nutrition to the largest number of people, yet relative to the total capture of the fisheries sector (comprising large-scale and small-scale fisheries), African SSF supply the most catch and nutrition. 

Historically, sharing of wild harvests to facilitate food security followed concepts of kin selection and reciprocal altruism. Though modernization has seen these networks of access to wild harvests decrease, new research offers recommendations to optimize wild meat donation, distribution and processing to increase food and nutrition stability and security in the United States. 

Governance is critical for developing financially sustainable communal institutions. For conservancies in Namibia, improving local management and governance performances, along with expanding the scope of NGO partnerships, can increase income generated by community-based natural resource economies.

This study presents a new analytical approach to evaluate how fishery management and post-harvest allocation decisions affect nutrient availability, using data on production, nutrition, distribution, and climate impacts. Applying the method to five countries, Peru, Chile, Indonesia, Sierra Leone, and Malawi, the authors find that adaptive management and reduced exports could significantly improve nutrition outcomes, though results vary widely by country. The approach offers a practical framework for aligning fisheries governance with national nutrition goals amid climate change.

The sarus crane is culturally important in Lumbini Province, Nepal representing where the story of Siddhartha Gautama, who became the Buddha, saved a crane wounded by an arrow. Sarus cranes are globally vulnerable and residents of Lumbini Province attribute habitat loss, illegal hunting, and wetland degradation as primary causes for population declines. Local community involvement including habitat restoration, reducing poaching, and population monitoring is needed for their conservation.

Hunting can serve as a long-term sustainable wildlife management tool that benefits conservation globally. Though there have been adverse impacts on certain species in the past and in present day, new research offers the ways in which regulated hunting can support wildlife species and their habitats across the globe. 

Wild-harvested game meat donations provide over 860 metric tons of meat annually to people experiencing food insecurity in the United States. Venison donation programs could be expanded by emphasizing meat derived from hyperabundant deer populations that could advance food security while reducing economic losses from deer-vehicle collisions and crop damage while improving ecosystem health.

Hunting and photographic tourism provide numerous ecosystem services and can benefit communal conservancies in Namibia, with income to communities improving when conservancies implemented both. Inter-conservancy wildlife co-management could further improve income potential and sustainable community-based natural resource economies

Hunting-based conservation organizations that measure harvested large mammals typically emphasize the maximum size of horns, antlers, or skulls. Namibia has recently implemented an age-based scoring system to recognize hunters for hunting older animals less likely to contribute to breeding populations. This novel approach has potential to complement existing management strategies to achieve wildlife harvest and conservation goals.

Wildlife harvests are an important source of food for millions of households worldwide, with nutritional value of wild-harvested meat often exceeding that of domestic livestock. However, a unified data framework for wildlife harvests is needed to ensure sustainability of these resources and fulfill their globally diverse and important role in food security and other ecosystem services.

Wildlife harvests have historically been critical to human food security, but there are numerous other benefits including cultural, economic, and mitigating conflicts and disease. Considering wildlife harvests within an ecosystem services framework can help guide more holistic thinking regarding wildlife management and policy.

Estimates of the nutritional value of recreational inland fisheries highlight their importance for aquatic food access and vulnerability to climate change. Yet, communicating the importance of data-poor natural resource sectors remains challenging, particularly when defining sustainable development priorities.

The Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa manages moose and white-tailed deer for sustainable subsistence. We identified peaks in natural adult mortality of moose and deer unrelated to harvest, despite subsistence hunting representing most fall deer mortalities. Our results can inform population models and harvest regulations following Anishinaabe principles of seventh-generation conservation planning. 

Humans are a leading cause of gray wolf mortality which can potentially dissolve packs and reduce reproduction. However, in Wisconsin, USA, recent harvests did not adversely affect gray wolf pack persistence or reproduction. We demonstrate that fall harvests with quotas spatially distributed across management zones can support stable wolf pack persistence and reproduction. 

Reproducible and transparent processes in wildlife management are crucial for decision-making integrity. We developed a framework for Missouri's first legal black bear harvest in the state’s history using spatial and temporal analyses to establish harvest timing and quotas that will ensure population viability while meeting socially accepted management goals.