Oh deer! Population changes from trophy hunting

The National Post recently ran an article about trophy hunting and how it has changed the population dynamics of herds. The article talks about the human tendency to target larger animals as trophies, leaving the smaller, weaker animals to survive. The problem arising from this is that the smaller animals are surviving long enough to breed, so ensuing generations are physically smaller in size.

The issue is that humans are changing these populations at a rate which exceeds that of natural selection. This means that hunters are working their way through the largest members of the population until its necessary for them to hunt the medium-sized members of the population and so on.


The proposed solution to this problem is to hunt less or start hunting the smaller animals in addition to the large ones. Good luck convincing trophy hunters that this is the only solution to this looming problem. It's going to take an integrated marketing strategy on the part of the Ministry of Natural Resources before people start getting the message.