The results indicate that hunters’ harvest reaches a threshold despite increasing population sizes. High densities in certain areas could possibly lead to hunters no longer being able to maintain that harvest rate. Additionally, one reason could be that once a hunter has felled a certain number of a species for their own consumption, they may be less inclined to invest further time for hunting and handling that species. One plausible reason for a sublinear response could be that the parameter takes both spatial and temporal factors into consideration.
That a high variability (low γ value) is found for wild boar and fallow deer, but not for roe deer, could possibly be because they are found in larger herd sizes compared to roe deer. If one wild boar or fallow deer are observed chances are several more are observed as well. Meanwhile, roe deer are often found alone or in small groups
Conclusion
- My model in observing hunters’ response to population densities could help improve predict trends and monitoring of ungulate management
- Additionally, my model can help understand fluctuation in species abundance and how hunting trends for game species affect their densities
- Can be applied to other game species as well and is interesting for different stakeholders such as agencies and other organizations in wildlife management