Indigenous Hunters Research Articles

Sports-hunting, Fairness and Colonial Identity: Collaboration and Subversion in the Northwestern Frontier Region of the British Indian Empire

This paper examines the place of hunting in the construction of identity for both British colonial sportsmen and indigenous hunters on the north-western frontier region of the British Indian empire, illustrating how their competing moral orders are placed in tension in the colonial encounter through the shared experience of hunting. I show that the British sportsmen generally used ideas of fairness in hunting to mark themselves off from the indigenous hunters while colonial frontier officers specifically, through their adeptness in hunting, differentiated themselves from other colonial officers. I argue that ideas of fairness had a different place in the indigenous hunting practices, and often clashed with the 'moral ecology' of the colonial hunters. Using the example of 'palming off', I show how unlike the clash of moral ecologies in relation to hunting practices, the process through which the identities of colonial hunters were constructed was a precarious and contingent one in which indigenous collaboration played a crucial role.

Space, Place, and Hunting Patterns among Indigenous Peoples of the Guyanese Rupununi Region

La cacería persiste como una actividad importante de subsistencia para muchos pueblos indígenas de los neotrópicos. Aquí describimos los patrones de cacería en el sur de Guyana usando un método mixto, desde una perspectiva del espacio y lugar que toma en cuenta factores biofísicos y culturales. Nuestros resultados coinciden con los de otros investigadores, en que la distancia del pueblo, mediada por la característica del ambiente físico, afecta las zonas donde actúan los cazadores. Nuestro mapeo del paisaje cultural, demuestra que el 'sentido de lugar' también es importante. Argumentamos que los investigadores y los que manejan estos territorios deben incluir, no solamente el ambiente físico, sino el contexto cultural que forma parte de la biodiversidad y el manejo y uso de los recursos sustentables.

Modelling the long‐term sustainability of indigenous hunting in Manu National Park, Peru: landscape‐scale management implications for Amazonia

Summary 1. Widespread hunting throughout Amazonia threatens the persistence of large primates and other vertebrates. Most studies have used models of limited validity and restricted spatial and temporal scales to assess the sustainability. 2. We use human‐demographic, game‐harvest and game‐census data to parameterize a spatially explicit hunting model. We explore how population growth and spread, hunting technology and effort, and source–sink dynamics impact the density of black spider monkeys Ateles chamek over time and space in the rainforests of south‐eastern Peru. 3. In all scenarios, spider monkey populations, which are vulnerable to hunting, persist in high numbers in much of Manu National Park over the next 50 years. Nonetheless, shotguns cause much more depletion than traditional bow hunting by Matsigenka (Machiguenga) indigenous people. 4. Maintenance of the current indigenous lifestyle (dispersed settlements, bow hunting) is unlikely to deplete spider monkeys and, by extension, other fauna, despite rapid human population growth. This helps explain why large, pre‐Colombian human populations did not drive large primates to extinction. When guns are used, however, spider monkeys quickly become depleted around even small settlements, with depletion eventually reversing the short‐term harvest advantage provided by shotgun hunting. Thus, our models show that when guns are used, limits on settlement numbers can reduce total depletion. 5. Synthesis and applications. Our framework lets us visualize the future effects of hunting, population growth, hunting technology and settlement spread in tropical forests. In Manu Park, the continued prohibition of firearms is important for ensuring long‐term hunting sustainability. A complementary policy is to negotiate limits on new settlements in return for development aid in existing settlements. The advantage of the latter approach is that settlement numbers are more easily monitored than is hunting effort or technology. Similar policies could help to reduce landscape‐scale depletion of prey species in human‐occupied reserves and protected areas throughout the Amazon.

Breakthrough into action

AbstractWe take as axiomatic from Hymes's work that the linguistic structures of oral narrative should be construed not as abstract and ideal but as artifacts of the human mind in action in society, and that the indissoluble tension between structure and creativity should be moved by analysts in the direction of social justice. The problem we faced in an extended set of action projects aimed at reducing discrimination against Alaska Natives was that problems framed for our attention were often misleading though on the surface clear-cut and reasonable. We began by viewing narrative as a work of social interaction between storyteller and audience in which taboos often dictate indirect statement, and gradually learned to see action as the active punch line. We began to breakthrough into action—acting ourselves in order to learn how people act, what they know and value, how they structure their worlds—using a strategy we now call “nexus analysis.” Taking narrative as the discursive doppelganger of action, we trained educators and medics to perceive and pursue indigenous hunting strategies of carefully surrounding rather than going directly to quarry. We worked through abduction by moving from action to action, becoming directly engaged in processes of social change.

Craniometric evidence for South African Later Stone Age herders and hunter–gatherers being a single biological population

Later Stone Age (LSA) hunter–gatherers and herders co-existed in South Africa during the last 2000 years. In spite of being the focus of intensive research over the years, the biological status and origins of the herders are still unclear. Did they represent a genetically distinct immigrant population who remained separate from the indigenous hunter–gatherers, or where they indigenous hunter–gatherers who took up herding after contact with herders, probably in northern Botswana? Here, this issue is investigated using craniometric data collected on a large sample of individually dated human crania from coastal LSA context. Mahalanobis distances ( D), calculated from the raw metric data, show that there was a small increase in inter-individual craniofacial variation after the introduction of herding at ca. 2000 BP. Here it is argued that this small increase in variation is neither consistent with a large-scale immigration of genetically distinct herders into South Africa, or the long-term co-existence of two genetically distinct populations. Two alternative explanations fit the data better: (1) herding entered South Africa via the small-scale immigration of genetically distinct herders; and (2) local hunter–gatherer populations adopted herding after coming in contact with herders in northern Botswana. While small-scale immigration would not have had a major influence on the local gene pool, it would have increased variation to some extent as immigrants mixed with local populations. If small-scale external gene flow was not a factor in the introduction of herding, secular issues related to the introduction of herding could explain the increased variation in post-2000 BP populations.

The impact of hunting with dogs on wildlife harvests in the Bosawas Reserve, Nicaragua

SUMMARYAlthough they are used throughout the Neotropics, the impact of dogs on the composition of wildlife harvests has received little systematic attention. In the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve of Nicaragua, indigenous hunters rely heavily on dogs to locate prey. Hunting harvest data over a year-long period in two indigenous Mayangna and Miskito communities indicate that the use of hunting dogs is significantly associated with the harvests of several terrestrial mammalian species. The use of dogs is also a significant predictor of the extent to which the species composition of harvests deviates from Neotropical averages. Although dogs appear to have little effect on the sex profiles of harvested game species, the use of dogs is significantly associated with hunting in agricultural landscapes. From a conservation perspective, the disadvantages of dogs include their indiscriminate pursuit of prey species, including species that hunters would not otherwise pursue. Advantages of dogs include their relative ineffectiveness in pursuits of species that are particularly vulnerable to overhunting, such as primates and white-lipped peccaries (Tayassu pecari). Hunting dogs may be an economical option for many Neotropical societies, and their role in wildlife management plans merits increased attention from conservationists.

Giant Anteaters (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) Killed By Hunters With Dogs In the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve, Nicaragua

This report is the first to document giant anteaters (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) in Nicaragua. An indigenous hunter killed four giant anteaters in the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve, Nicaragua. The Mayangna and Miskito residents of the reserve do not eat giant anteaters, but hunters sometimes kill the animals because of the threat they pose to hunting dogs.

Rapid Assessment of Risks to a Mobile Marine Mammal in an Ecosystem‐Scale Marine Protected Area

Ecosystem-scale networks of marine protected areas (MPAs) are important conservation tools, but their effectiveness is difficult to quantify in a time frame appropriate to species conservation because of uncertainties in the data available. The dugong (Dugong dugon) is a mobile marine species that occurs in shallow inshore waters of an ecosystem-scale network of MPAs (the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area [GBRWHA]). We developed a rapid approach to assess risk to dugongs in the region and evaluate options to ameliorate that risk. We used expert opinion and a Delphi technique to identify and rank 5 human factors with the potential to adversely affect dugongs and their sea grass habitats: netting, indigenous hunting, trawling, vessel traffic, and poor-quality terrestrial runoff. We then quantified and compared the distribution of these factors with a spatially explicit model of dugong distribution. We estimated that approximately 96% of habitat of high conservation value for dugongs in the GBRWHA is at low risk from human activities. Using a sensitivity analysis, we found that to decrease risk, commercial netting or indigenous hunting had to be reduced in remote areas and the effects of vessel traffic, terrestrial runoff, and commercial netting had to be reduced in urban areas. This approach enabled us to compare and rank risks so as to identify the most severe risks and locate specific sites that require further management attention.

Representing Traditional Knowledge: Resource Management and Inuit Knowledge of Barren-Ground Caribou

Comanagement regimes in Canada's North rarely include indigenous systems for understanding the environment. Mapped representations and accompanying narratives illustrating the collective knowledge of indigenous hunters can make unique management contributions. Both the multigenerational knowledge of indigenous communities and opportunities allowing a discussion of diverse ways of interpreting environmental observations are crucial to involving indigenous learning systems within current regional wildlife management. It is not just the factual “data” of indigenous hunters that are relevant to resource management. It is the opportunities for social learning or for resource managers to understand how indigenous hunters learn about the environment that are directly relevant to resource management decision making.

Temporal variability in the life history and reproductive biology of female dugongs in Torres Strait: The likely role of sea grass dieback

The extensive sea grass meadows in Torres Strait enable it to be a globally important habitat for the dugong, Dugong dugon, a marine mammal of cultural and dietary significance to Torres Strait Islanders and the basis for the substantial island-based fishery in the Torres Strait Protected Zone. Torres Strait sea grass communities are subjected to episodic diebacks which are now believed to be largely natural events. Information on dugong life history was obtained from specimens obtained from female dugongs as they were butchered for food by Indigenous hunters at two major dugong hunting communities in Torres Strait: Daru (9.04°S, 143.21°E) in 1978–1982 (a time of sea grass dieback and recovery) and Mabuiag Island (9.95°S, 142.15°E) in 1997–1999 (when sea grasses were abundant). Dugongs sampled in 1997–1999 had their first calf at younger ages (minimum of 6 cf. 10 years), and more frequently (interbirth interval based on all possible pregnancies 2.6±0.4 (S.E.) yr cf. 5.8±1.0 yr) than the dugongs sampled in 1978–1982. Pregnancy rates increased monotonically during 1978–1982, coincident with sea grass recovery. The age distribution of the female dugongs collected in 1997–1999 also suggested a low birth rate between 1973 and 1983 and/or or a high level of mortality for animals born during this period. These results add to the evidence from other regions that the life history and reproductive rate of female dugongs are adversely affected by sea grass loss, the effect of which cannot be separated from a possible density-dependent response to changes in dugong population size. Many green turtles in Torres Strait were also in poor body condition coincident with the 1970s sea grass dieback. The impacts of future sea grass diebacks need to be anticipated when management options for the traditional Torres Strait fisheries for dugongs and green turtles are evaluated.

The spatial patterns of indigenous wildlife use in western Panama: Implications for conservation management

Measuring the impacts of indigenous hunting on neotropical wildlife populations remains a difficult task. Significant insights can be gained by analyzing the spatial patterns of hunting yields. This paper presents a geographic analysis of game captured by hunters in 59 households belonging to five neighbouring villages in western Panama over a period of 232 days. The locations of 1269 game kill sites within a hunting zone of 131km2 were documented with trained local investigators and then entered into a geographic information system with associated attribute data for analysis. Results show a heavy concentration of kill sites around the study communities. Nearly 90% of the total harvest by weight was captured within just 2km of hunters’ homes. Yet, while several species are captured in large numbers close to home, others are caught closer to the outer peripheries of the shared hunting zone, suggesting that some degree of localized depletion may have occurred. The findings demonstrate the value of mapping the boundaries of hunting zones and game kill sites to assess the impacts of hunting on game species in tropical and other ecosystems and to provide an empirical basis for delimiting conservation zones that balance the use and protection of wildlife in tropical forest regions.

Pacific walruses, indigenous hunters, and climate change: Bridging scientific and indigenous knowledge

Abstract This paper presents and evaluates two perspectives on changing climate–walrus–human relationships in the Beringian region, from the viewpoints of marine biology and ecology, and from that of indigenous hunters. Bridging these types of knowledge is vital in order to grasp the complexity of the processes involved and for advancing understanding of subarctic marine ecosystems that are currently experiencing rapid ecological and social change. We argue that despite substantial gaps and distinctions, information generated by scientists and indigenous hunters have many similarities. Differences in interpretation are primarily due to scaling and temporal rates of change of knowledge, which could be rectified through more active sharing of expertise and records, enhanced documentation of indigenous observations, more collaborative research, and increased insight from the social sciences.

Using Bayesian state-space modelling to assess the recovery and harvest potential of the Hawaiian green sea turtle stock

The Hawaiian green sea turtle genetic stock is endemic to the Hawaiian Archipelago. This stock was depleted over the past century mainly due to over-exploitation that ceased during the 1970s following protection under the US Endangered Species Act. Nesting trends suggest the stock has been recovering but no formal stock assessment has been undertaken. So, we used a Bayesian state-space surplus-production model to describe Hawaiian green turtle population dynamics given limited data and uncertainty about sea turtle demography. Data series comprised commercial landings of green turtles reported from the Archipelago (1944–1973) and nester abundance recorded at the primary rookery on East Island, French Frigate Shoals (1973–2004). The model incorporated process and observation error and was fitted using Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation with a mix of informative and non-informative priors. We estimated that the Hawaiian green turtle stock was ca. 20% of pre-exploitation biomass when monitoring and protection began in the 1970s. The stock is estimated to be now ca. 83% of pre-exploitation biomass with an intrinsic growth rate ca. 5.4% pa (95% Bayesian credible interval: 3.1–8.9%). Rebound or recovery potential (also exploitation rate at MSP) of this stock was estimated to be 3.4% (1.6–6.2%), which is consistent with estimates for other long-lived late-maturing marine species. So, this once-seriously-depleted green turtle stock is well on the way to recovery and a limited harvest might now be demographically feasible. These findings are relevant for supporting informed public policy debate on the restoration of indigenous hunting rights in the Archipelago. Parameter estimates and model structure from the Bayesian surplus-production model were incorporated in an interactive easy-to-use stochastic simulation model to help support policy analysts in stock recovery planning and to explore sustainable harvest potential.

Garden Game: Shifting Cultivation, Indigenous Hunting and Wildlife Ecology in Western Panama

Participatory research documented the hunting yields of 59 households in five neighboring indigenous villages in western Panama. These households captured 2,580 kg of game over 8 months, with 47% of the harvest coming from agricultural areas. The quantity of game captured in anthropogenic habitats is influenced by the hunting strategies employed. Only 25% of game captured during hunting trips was captured in agricultural areas, as opposed to 93% while “awaiting” and 65% using traps. Reliance on different strategies is in turn dependent on age, gender, and access to firearms. I argue that garden hunting is not a response to game depletion, but rather a productive activity that is complementary to broader cultural and economic patterns, and that simultaneously protects crops from animal predation. The creation of heterogeneous habitat mosaics through shifting cultivation has played a key role in the relationship between people and wildlife in the humid neotropics, leading to adjustments in both animal foraging patterns and indigenous hunting practices.

Spirits as ‘ready to hand’

The Upper Kolyma Yukaghirs, a small group of indigenous hunters in north-eastern Siberia, rarely give names to spirits and have no neatly ordered system of classification. I develop an argument that relates this to the nature of Yukaghir experience, going beyond the academically widespread view of knowledge as a matter of linguistic representations or cognition and focusing instead on the way things occur in the flux of people’s everyday activities. Moreover, drawing on recent findings within cognitive science, which show that concepts can and do exist independently of language, and that dreaming shares basic cognitive structures and processes with waking life, I suggest that it is possible that children, before they learn to talk, could develop prototypical concepts of spirits through dream experiences. In this case, language would not be essential for conceptual thought about spiritual beings.

Unsustainable harvest of dugongs in Torres Strait and Cape York (Australia) waters: two case studies using population viability analysis

AbstractA significant proportion of the world's remaining dugongs (Dugong dugon) occur off northern Australia where they face various anthropogenic impacts. Here, we investigate the viability of two dugong meta‐populations under varying regimes of indigenous hunting. We construct population viability analyses (PVAs) using the computer package VORTEX and published estimates of population sizes and hunting rates. In Torres Strait between Cape York and New Guinea, our models predict severe and imminent reductions in dugong numbers. Our ‘optimistic’ and ‘pessimistic’ models suggest median times for quasi‐extinction of 123 and 42 years, respectively. Extinction probabilities are also high for eastern Cape York Peninsula. We demonstrate the inadequacy of reserves when harvest rates in neighbouring areas are high, identify the maximum harvest rates for meta‐population stability and emphasise the urgent need for indigenous community involvement in management to establish sustainable rates of dugong harvest in these regions.

NOT ANIMAL, NOTNOT‐ANIMAL: HUNTING, IMITATION AND EMPATHETIC KNOWLEDGE AMONG THE SIBERIAN YUKAGHIRS

Among the Yukaghirs, a small group of indigenous hunters in northeastern Siberia, it is commonly held that humans and animals can turn into each other by temporarily taking on one another's bodies. However, this is dangerous for a hunter, because he may thus lose sight of his original species identity and undergo an irreversible metamorphosis. He therefore assumes the viewpoint of his prey, but not in any absolute sense, which would mean literally becoming the animal. This article explores the mimetic practice that allows the hunter to be similar to the animal impersonated, yet also different, giving him a ‘double perspective’ by which he can seduce and kill his prey.

The Edison gene: ADHD and the gift of the hunter child

The Edison gene: ADHD and the gift of the hunter child

Cystic echinococcosis in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic.

The northern biotype of Echinococcus granulosus occurs throughout the holarctic zones of tundra and taiga, from eastern Fennoscandia to the Bering Strait in Eurasia and in North America from arctic Alaska approximately to the northern border of the United States. The cycle of the cestode is complex in taiga at lower latitudes, because of the greater diversity of potential hosts. In the Arctic and Subarctic, however, four patterns of predator/prey relationships may be discerned. Two natural cycles involve the wolf and wild reindeer and the wolf and elk (moose), respectively. Where deer of the two species coexist, both are prey of the wolf; the interactions of the wolf and elk are here described on the basis of long-term observations made on Isle Royale (in Lake Superior near the southern limit of taiga), where only the wolf and elk serve as hosts for E. granulosus. A synanthropic cycle involving herding-dogs and domesticated reindeer caused hyperendemicity of cystic echinococcosis in arctic Eurasia, mainly in northeastern Siberia. The 4th pattern, a semi-synanthropic cycle, formerly existed in Alaska, wherein sled-dogs of the indigenous hunters became infected by consuming the lungs of wild reindeer. The sequence of changes in life-style inherent in the process of acculturation affected the occurrence of cystic echinococcosis among nomadic Iñupiat in arctic Alaska. When those people became sedentary, the environs of their early villages soon became severely contaminated by faeces of dogs, and cases of cystic echinococcosis occurred. Compared to cystic echinococcosis caused by E. granulosus adapted to synanthropic hosts (dog and domestic ungulates), the infection produced by the northern biotype is relatively benign. Nearly all diagnosed cases of cystic echinococcosis (> 300) in Alaska have occurred in indigenous people; only one fatality has been recorded (in a non-indigenous person). After sled-dogs were replaced by machines, cases have become rare in Alaska. A similar effect has been observed in Fennoscandia, in the Saami and domesticated reindeer. Recent records indicate that the prevalence of cystic echinococcosis is increasing in Russia, suggesting that dogs are used there in herding.

Government, Culture and Sustainability in Greenland: A Microstate with a Hinterland

In population terms Greenland is one of the world's smallest states, but it occupies one of the world's largest land masses. It also brings together two very different cultures, those of the indigenous Inuit hunter society and those of the Danish colonial administration. There is now a substantial measure of self-government, building on what this article sees as a surprising measure of common ground between the cultures. Today economics and technology present significant challenges, and the article suggests that the cause of social sustainability will not be well served by giving in to contemporary global pressures.