Conservation of Exploited Species

The use of wildlife for food and other human needs poses one of the greatest threats to the conservation of biodiversity. Wildlife exploitation is also critically important to many people from a variety of cultures for subsistence and commerce. This book brings together international experts to examine interactions between the biology of wildlife and the divergent goals of people involved in hunting, fishing, gathering and culling wildlife. Reviews of theory show how sustainable exploitation is tied to the study of population dynamics, with direct links to reproductive rates, life histories, behaviour, and ecology. As such theory is rarely put into practice to achieve sustainable use and effective conservation, Conservation of Exploited Species explores the many reasons for this failure and considers remedies to tackle them, including scientific issues such as how to incorporate uncertainty into estimations, as well as social and political problems that stem from conflicting goals in exploitation.

Author Biography

John Reynolds is a Reader in Evolutionary Ecology at the University of East Anglia, England. His research focuses on the evolution of reproductive behaviour and life histories with an emphasis on implications for conservation of marine and freshwater fishes. He was awarded the FSBI medal of the Fisheries Society of the British Isles in 2000, and is co-author of Marine Fisheries Ecology (2001) and co-editor of The Fish and Fisheries Handbook (2002). Georgina Mace is the Director of Science at the Institute of Zoology, London. Her research concerns extinction risk assessment and she has had extensive involvement with the IUCN in developing systems for categorising the levels of threat used in Red Lists of threatened species. She was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 19 . She is co-editor of Creative Conservation (1994) and Conservation in a Changing World (1999, ISBN 0521632706). Kent Redford is Director of Biodiversity Analysis at the Wildlife Conservation Society, New York. His research interests focus on effects of human use on biodiversity conservation, parks and protected areas and wildlife use by indigenous peoples. He has also co-edited Neotropical Wildlife Use and Conservation (1991), Conservation of Neotropical Forests (1992) and Parks in Peril (1998). John G. Robinson is Senior Vice-President and Director of International Conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society, New York. His research examines impacts of hunting on wildlife, particularly in tropical forests. He has worked on the IUCN’s Sustainable Use Initiative and has has co-edited Neotropical Wildlife Use and Conservation (1991) and Hunting for Sustainability in Tropical Forests (2000).