Trophy hunters pay more to target larger-bodied carnivores
Date
2019
Authors
Mihalik, Ilona
Bateman, Andrew
Darimont, Chris T.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Royal Society Open Science
Abstract
Hunters often target species that require resource investment
disproportionate to associated nutritional rewards. Costly
signalling theory provides a potential explanation, proposing
that hunters target species that impose high costs (e.g. higher
failure and injury risks, lower consumptive returns) because it
signals an ability to absorb costly behaviour. If costly signalling
is relevant to contemporary ‘big game’ hunters, we would
expect hunters to pay higher prices to hunt taxa with higher
perceived costs. Accordingly, we hypothesized that hunt prices
would be higher for taxa that are larger-bodied, rarer,
carnivorous, or described as dangerous or difficult to hunt.
In a dataset on 721 guided hunts for 15 North American
large mammals, prices listed online increased with body size in
carnivores (from approximately $550 to $1800 USD/day across
the observed range). This pattern suggests that elements of
costly signals may persist among contemporary non-subsistence
hunters. Persistence might simply relate to deception, given that
signal honesty and fitness benefits are unlikely in such different
conditions compared with ancestral environments in which
hunting behaviour evolved. If larger-bodied carnivores are
generally more desirable to hunters, then conservation and
management strategies should consider not only the ecology of
the hunted but also the motivations of hunters.
Description
We thank B. Starzomski and T. Dawson for their important insight at the early stages of this project. We also thank members of the UVic Applied Conservation Science Lab for their support and input throughout this project.
Keywords
body size, costly signalling, trophy hunting, wildlife harvest, exploitation, carnivore
Citation
Mihalik, I., Bateman, A. W., & Darimont, C. T. (2019). Trophy hunters pay more to target larger-bodied carnivores. Royal Society Open Science, 6(9), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.191231