11.8 Legal Hunting

Does hunting hurt wildlife and make animals extinct?

It’s surprising how many people think that controlled (legal) hunting actually reduces wildlife populations. It’s true that hunting in the 1800s dramatically reduced wildlife populations in North America. But please remember that market hunters—those hunting for profit!—were generally responsible for killing most wildlife. Market hunting and unregulated hunting by settlers definitely harmed wildlife!

Most people who haven’t studied anything about wildlife find it hard to believe that we actually have more wildlife today than we had 90-100 years ago. Nationwide, turkey, deer, elk, and antelope were actually scarce a century ago.

Controlled hunting has never made a wildlife population extinct. Hunting and you, the hunter, are tools of modern wildlife management!