New at Mongabay: Hunting and trade can push even abundant wildlife populations to the brink
https://news.mongabay.com/2017/12/a-vicious-cycle-towards-extinction-hunting-and-trade-can-push-even-abundant-wildlife-populations-to-the-brink/ - *Researchers at the University of Queensland looked at something called the anthropogenic Allee effect (AAE), a theory that proposes a critical population level threshold below which the likelihood of a species going extinct increases substantially due to rising prices for rare animals incentivizing more hunting.* - *Using mathematical models to determine how quickly wildlife populations can decrease as prices for animal products rise in response to animal scarcity, the researchers found that the population thresholds proposed by AAE theory can drastically underestimate extinction risks.* - *While these findings would appear to call into question the biological sustainability of trophy hunting, the debate over trophy hunting is typically centered on social and economic outcomes.* Erik -- See my latest writing and photojournalism projects here <http://www.erikhoffner.com/> *tw: @erikhoffner <https://twitter.com/ErikHoffner>*
