Large carnivore hunting and the social license to hunt |
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Authors: | Chris T. Darimont Hannah Hall Lauren Eckert Ilona Mihalik Kyle Artelle Adrian Treves Paul C. Paquet |
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Affiliation: | 1. Department of Geography, University of Victoria, P.O. Box 1700, Victoria, British Columbia, V8W 2Y2 Canada;2. Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin, 550 North Park Street, Madison, WI, 53706 U.S.A. |
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Abstract: | The social license to operate framework considers how society grants or withholds informal permission for resource extractors to exploit publicly owned resources. We developed a modified model, which we refer to as the social license to hunt (SLH). In it we similarly consider hunters as operators, given that wildlife are legally considered public resources in North America and Europe. We applied the SLH model to examine the controversial hunting of large carnivores, which are frequently killed for trophies. Killing for trophies is widespread, but undertaken by a minority of hunters, and can pose threats to the SLH for trophy-seeking carnivore hunters and potentially beyond. Societal opposition to large carnivore hunting relates not only to conservation concerns but also to misalignment between killing for trophies and dominant public values and attitudes concerning the treatment of animals. We summarized cases related to the killing of grizzly bears (Ursus arctos), wolves (Canis lupus), and other large carnivores in Canada, the United States, and Europe to illustrate how opposition to large carnivore hunting, now expressed primarily on social media, can exert rapid and significant pressure on policy makers and politicians. Evidence of the potential for transformative change to wildlife management and conservation includes proposed and realized changes to legislation, business practice, and wildlife policy, including the banning of some large carnivore hunts. Given that policy is ultimately shaped by societal values and attitudes, research gaps include developing increased insight into public support of various hunting policies beyond that derived from monitoring of social media and public polling. Informed by increased evidence, the SLH model can provide a conceptual foundation for predicting the likelihood of transient versus enduring changes to wildlife conservation policy and practice for a wide variety of taxa and contexts. |
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Keywords: | animal use conservation social license to operate stakeholders wildlife actores sociales conservación fauna licencia social para operar uso animal 动物利用 保护 社会经营许可证 利益相关者 野生动物 |
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