Buffalo Hunting: From a Commodity to a High-Value Game Species

Ecosystem services are the contributions that natural ecosystems make to people. Mammalian carnivores can provide both positive and negative ecosystem services by consuming pest or game species, respectively. In this study, we determined the consumption of certain game and pest species for a guild of sympatric small- and medium-sized carnivores (European badger, red fox, European polecat, stone marten, stoat and least weasel). We found that game and pest species comprise a notable proportion of the diet, ranging from 0.0% to 12.6% and from 2.7% to 46.3%, respectively. Furthermore, for all carnivores we found that the proportion of pest species such as rats and voles (i.e., positive ecosystem service) was higher than the proportion of game species such as pheasants, partridges and hares, i.e., negative ecosystem service). Moreover, stoat and weasel did not consume any game species. This study gives a first overview of the potential ecosystem services through consumption of pest and game species provided by small- and medium-sized carnivores.

A Perspective on the Journal of Wildlife Management

Conservation efforts often lead to a small proportion of species receiving a disproportionate amount of attention. This bias in funding may help or hinder broader goals of biodiversity conservation depending on the surrogacy value of the well-funded species. Surrogate species are selected to represent other taxa in a shared environment when it would be costly or impractical to obtain information on individual taxa. We compared the surrogacy value of common groups of taxa implicated in conservation — game species, carnivores, non-game species, and other species. Using a publicly available data set of species–habitat associations, we compared the surrogacy value for 1012 species and 64 habitat types in British Columbia, Canada. We used a conditional entropy metric to quantify pairwise associations between species via their occurrence in different habitat types. Our analysis reveals that game and non-game species surrogacy groups do not significantly differ in either the frequency of captured pairwise associations or their coverage of species. These results suggest that funding game species conservation is likely conferring some benefits to non-game species, but optimal habitat-based conservation outcomes will come from a combination of taxa. This analysis provides an important step in influencing management decisions for the preservation of biodiversity in British Columbia.

Game kill statistics are often reasonably good indicators of the main rhythm of variation in common small game and predatory species with marked short-term population fluctuations. However, they only poorly reflect general changes in population level

Unsustainable harvest is driving population declines in tropical forest species across the globe. Despite maintaining the second highest percent forest cover in the world (85%), concern is increasing in Guyana that unmanaged commercial and subsistence hunting activities could result in defaunation, and the cascading ecological effects of ‘empty forests.’ The Rupununi region in southwestern Guyana, home to the Kanuku Mountains Protected Area (KMPA), hosts one of the world’s lowest human population densities (0.42 people/km2), as well as large tracts of both Neotropical savanna and forest habitats, making it one of the country’s most biodiverse regions. Indigenous Makushi and Wapichan communities that reside there have maintained subsistence lifestyles mediated by traditional beliefs and management practices for millennia. However, as human populations and access to markets increase, there is a corresponding increase in harvesting of natural resources. Protected areas have long been recognized for their role in biodiversity conservation, while also serving as a reserve for subsistence hunters. The KMPA, one of Guyana’s newest protected areas, allows for the continued sustainable use of its resources by indigenous communities. It is critical to understand the patterns, impacts, and sustainable levels of hunting in and around the protected area so that biodiversity can be managed and conserved effectively. Our study shows that the impact of current hunting intensity in and around the KMPA remains relatively low and supports the hypothesis that Neotropical forests can support hunting pressure of <1 person/km2. While our results show that current levels of hunting in the region can be considered sustainable, small shifts in activity patterns and relative abundance of preferred game species were observed in higher intensity hunting areas, which in turn appeared to have influenced other non-hunted species’ activity patterns and relative abundance. Our results suggest therefore, that even in low hunting intensity areas, monitoring both preferred game and non-hunted species’ activity patterns and abundances is important to act as an early warning system before animal populations are significantly impacted by overharvesting. Further, our study highlights the importance of considering the entire ecosystem and not simply individual populations when establishing sustainable harvesting rates for an area.

Despite the numerous studies on food safety and authenticity, especially for meat and meat products, not enough studies have been conducted focusing exclusively on game species and other unusual meat animals. As a result of the European horse scandal, the horse is currently the target of many meat authenticity studies. With this review, we aim to present various DNA-based methods that have been used by researchers to identify, detect, and quantify game, uncommon meat animals, and wildlife species. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is considered the standard method for DNA analysis in meat authenticity testing. However, in this paper, we present several other methods that may or may not involve the PCR technique. For this purpose, we systematically reviewed 131 articles selected according to various criteria such as target animal species, method of analysis, year of publication, and so forth. The result of our study shows the most studied game and uncommon meat species, PCR- and non-PCR-based methods for game meat analysis, and DNA-based methods in wildlife conservation. With this study, researchers can find detailed information about frequent game species used as adulterants for regular meat products and the DNA-based techniques to identify them.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in livestock and game species: A review

Acevedo, P., Delibes-Mateos, M. (2013). Effects of changes in land use on game species in southern Spain: implications for game management. Ecosistemas 22(2):33-39. Doi.: 10.7818/ECOS.2013.22-2.06 In recent decades society has become increasingly concerned about global change, especially with respect to land use and climate changes. While the planet is constantly changing, current transformation rates are higher than usual, and they have had significant effects on biodiversity. Here we review and describe land use changes since 1960 in southern Spain in order to understand their effects on the distribution and abundance of the main game species in this area. In general, there has been an increase in favorable areas for big game species. This is especially evident in mountain areas where, on the contrary, favorable areas for small game species have declined significantly. In the light of these findings, we discuss the most suitable management strategies for each game species.

During the 10-year survey (1996–2005), a total of 868 blood samples from different game species in Croatia were analyzed for the presence of leptospiral antibodies. The specific antibodies (AB) were detected in 242 samples (27.88%). According to the species in red deer (Cervus elaphus), the antibodies against six different leptospiral serovars were found in 43 of 226 analyzed sera (19.02%). The most frequent antigen serovars in the deer population were Pomona and Ballum (with the same frequency of 23.6%), whereas the highest titer was recorded for serovar Sejroe (1:800). In the analyzed roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) serum samples, a low level of leptospiral antibodies (6.07%) was determined, with just two AB for antigen serovars—Australis and Sejroe. In wild boar (Sus scrofa), leptospiral antibodies were detected in 151 of 431 samples analyzed (35.03%), with AB for nine antigen serovars. The serovars most frequently found were Australis (48.70%) and Pomona (22.70%), and these serovars also recorded the highest titer (1:3,200). Among brown bear (Ursus arctos) samples, leptospiral antibodies were detected in 25.00% of the samples, with four AB for antigen serovars, of which the most frequent was Icterohaemorrhagiae (>40%). This serovar had the highest recorded titer (1:400). From 112 analyzed red fox (Vulpes vulpes) samples, leptospiral antibodies were found in 35 samples (31.25%). The determined antibodies were specific for four antigen serovars, of which the most frequent (46.2%) and with highest titer (1:1600) was serovar Australis. No antibodies (28/0) were recorded in mouflon (Ovis musimon). The most important game species from an epizootiological point of view in the studied area were certainly wild boar and red foxes. With strong serological reactions, these two species could be emphasized as important hosts for Leptospira interrogans sv. Australis in Croatia, but for their declaration as ‘maintaining hosts,’ isolation of sv. Australis is needed. According to aerial distribution, the highest number of positive samples from different game species was recorded in the central and eastern parts of Croatia, known as the ‘historical natural foci’ of leptospirosis—the regions of Posavina, Podravina, Slavonija, and Baranja. In contrast, the areas of Kordun and Gorski Kotar are declared as leptospira low-risk regions for the game species studied.

Urban sprawl, increased traffic and modern forestry, as well as the globalisation of agriculture, have increasingly been affecting the landscape and its quality as habitat for species especially since the middle of the last century. Still, there are hardly any methods nor indicators which can measure the quality of the landscape for species over a long period. In this study, we investigated the influence of landscape structure and landscape quality on harvest data of 28 game species in South Tyrol, Italy, over the last 150 years. The harvest data were used to assess the population dynamics of individual species and habitat guilds since 1870.As a first result, we could show, on the examples of six species, that count population data were highly correlated with harvest data and are therefore well suited to estimate their population size. Second, the populations of ungulates consistently increased during the study period. The numbers of mesocarnivores as well as smaller forest and alpine game species increased strongly until the 1970s/80s of the last century, followed by a decline. The populations of farmland species and some synanthropic species have decreased substantially, and some species have even disappeared completely. Based on these results, we were able to show, in a third step, that the landscape quality for game species in South Tyrol has developed differently: In particular, the agriculturally used habitats have lost quality, whereas forests and alpine regions have initially gained quality due to the extensification of use; during the last five decades, the quality decreases again, at least for small game species. Our results thus provide concrete implications for the active improvement of the landscape quality for farmland and forest species, as well as indications for future priorities in funding support of alpine pasture management.

SummaryThis paper presents a method to address two wildlife management problems in central African rainforests: the need for local communities to take responsibility for wildlife management, and the lack of simple and appropriate wildlife monitoring techniques. The method uses encounters of game species during net hunts to calculate abundance indices as well as to estimate population densities for the four principal game species in the Dzanga–Sangha region: the duikers Cephalophus monticola (10.7–20.4 km−2), C. dorsalis (1.2–2.0 km−2), and C. callipygus (0.9–1.2 km−2), and the brush‐tailed porcupine Atherurus africanus (2.7–5.3 km−2). Game species behaviour, the hunting practice, and comparisons with results from other research across central Africa suggest that the method can provide valid density estimates for C. monticola and C. dorsalis, but only abundance indices for C. callipygus and A. africanus. Nevertheless, the method can be applied by hunters in the course of their normal activities, and is adapted to the local habitat types and game species. As such, it can be an important tool for local communities in developing sustainable wildlife management programmes.

: Hunting in tropical forests is typically most intense near human settlements, and this creates gradients of decreasing animal densities toward those settlements. Within the context of this spatial pattern, we evaluated the status of game in the hunting grounds of an indigenous community in eastern Ecuador. We constructed a spatially explicit model of hunter‐prey interactions that mimicked the hunting in the village and included realistic animal‐dispersal rules. We compared predictions from the model with distributions of animal harvest rates and catch per unit effort of 12 game species. Six species were overharvested in part or all of the area, and two other species were probably being overharvested, although high dispersal rates complicated the interpretation. We then compared our method with methods that have been used previously. We argue that because our method provides information about the spatial extent of overharvesting, it could be particularly useful in informing decision makers about where to establish no‐take areas and could therefore aid in improving the sustainability of hunting in tropical forests.

There is a debate whether supplementary feeding of game species is necessary, and what type of supplementary food is appropriate for them. In our study a new type of supplemental food for wild game species was evaluated. Fresh tomato pomace mixed with ground maize grains (20% w/w on a fresh basis) was baled. Different additive treatments were made and crude protein and crude fibre content and fermentation profile were evaluated. Consumption of tomato pomace silage by wild ungulates was also measured. Ground maize grains increased the dry matter content and crude protein : crude fibre ratio of tomato pomace. Tomato pomace mixed silage had a limited fermentation capacity with appropriate pH and fermentation acid content. The special baling technology was suitable to form well-shaped bales. In the investigated hunting preserve tomato pomace was the dominant food component in the diet of ungulate species. According to our results, tomato pomace could provide suitable quality supplementary food for large game species.

The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is generally considered a pest species, especially in rural habitats where it is perceived as a predator of livestock and game species. In many countries, population-control programs are carried out to prevent predation on species of human concern. However, most of these programs occur without an analysis of the real fox impact. This study analyzed the diet of red foxes inhabiting a farmland area characterized by the presence of both free-ranging livestock and game species. We analyzed a total of 147 scats belonging to 32 food samples. Invertebrates represented the main food category (recorded on 66% of food samples), followed by fruit and small mammals, both recorded on 59% of food samples. The seasonal variation of the diet matched the availability of food resources, as demonstrated by the outcome of small mammal trapping activity in the area. The livestock consumption regarded almost exclusively carrions, since only hair of adult sheep were recorded with high frequency. Wild boar hair were found in two food samples, lamb and hare hair were found in only one. Our study showed an easy protocol to assess the role of red fox as a predator of livestock and game species before planning management actions. In the analyzed farmland, for instance, a population-control program should not be justified despite the presence of lambs, piglets, hares and pheasants.

A practical measure of assessing periods of potential nutritional stress of game species is needed in the management of these species in the Acacia karroo Riparian Thicket of the central Free State. The objectives of the study were to determine Nf concentration of four game species (browsers and mixed feeders) during different seasons, compare Nf with leaf phenology patterns, and assess whether Nf reaches levels at which body condition loss can be expected. A seasonal pattern was observed with the lowest Nf concentrations recorded during late winter, which correlated with the seasonal phenology pattern (leaf carriage) of the winter-deciduous tree species. The Nf concentrations (g N kg−1 dung DM) of giraffe ranged from 18.3 (late winter) to 36.7 (summer) and that of kudu from 13.6 to 33.2. Likewise, the Nf of impala ranged from 16.9 to 28.0 and that of eland from 16.3 to 34.9. Access to evergreen woody species during the late-winter period proved to be essential in avoiding condition loss that corresponds with Nf levels below published critical levels (<16). In the absence of evergreen species, supplementary feeding is essential. Faecal nitrogen proved to be a useful indicator of seasonal trends in the nutritional status of browsing game species.