The previous sections have provided a detailed account of the situation for vertebrate species and subspecies throughout the various continents and oceans of the world. It is a grim chronicle of animal exterminations and an almost unbelievable misuse of living natural resources – in the past due to ignorance, in modern times due to the deliberate desire for short-term profit – and without any sense of responsibility to our fellow human beings or regard for future generations. The gruesome picture, expressed in naked figures of extinct and threatened vertebrates during the last 500 years, appears in the table below.

The May 2019 IPBES emphasised the scale of the current biodiversity crisis and the need for transformative change, but highlighted that the tools exist to enable this change. Conservation translocation is an increasingly used tool that involves people deliberately moving and releasing organisms where the primary goal is conservation – it includes species reintroductions, reinforcements, assisted colonisations and ecological replacements. It can be complex, expensive, time consuming, and sometimes controversial, but when best practice guidelines are followed it can be a very effective conservation method and a way of exciting and engaging people in environmental issues. Conservation translocations have an important role to play not only in improving the conservation status of individual species but also in ecological restoration and rewilding by moving keystone and other influential species. As the climate continues to change, species with poor dispersal abilities or opportunities will be at particular risk. Assisted colonisation, which involves moving species outside their indigenous range, is likely to become an increasingly used method. It is also a tool that may become increasingly used to avoid threats from the transmission of pathogens. Other more radical forms of conservation translocation, such as ecological replacements, multi-species conservation translocations, and the use of de-extinction and genetic interventions, are also likely to be given stronger consideration within the wider framework of ecological restoration. There have been significant advances in the science of reintroduction biology over the last three decades. However new ways of transferring and sharing such information are needed to enable a wider spectrum of practitioners to have easier access to knowledge and guidance. In the past the biological considerations of conservation translocations have often heavily outweighed the people considerations. However it is increasingly important that socio-economic factors are also built into projects and relevant experts involved to reduce conflict and improve the chances of success. Some level of biological and socio-economic risk will be present for most conservation translocations, but these can often be managed through the use of sensitivity, professionalism, and the application of tried and tested best practice. The role of species reintroduction and other forms of conservation translocations will be an increasingly important tool if we are to restore, and make more resilient, our damaged ecosystems.

Humans and other animals face decisions on which food items to harvest, when to quit searching and when to move on to the next patch. This chapter starts by describing optimal foraging theory (OFT), which has been used to understand and to predict foraging behaviour in animals as well as humans. We follow this by describing how cultural issues, such as taboos and religious beliefs, can affect optimal foraging in humans. We describe how OFT has been applied to human foraging and why it has been criticized by some researchers. We show that a number of alternatives to OFT models applied to humans have been suggested. Because there are different prey species and food is not distributed uniformly, prey and foraging space must be selected by human foragers. We continue by defining group hunting and sexual division in hunting roles as crucial elements in human foraging strategies. We end the chapter by discussing conservation and sustainability and linking this to the ecologically noble savage concept introduced in the previous chapter.

In this first chapter we describe the importance of hunting and meat eating to humans and how this has influenced the evolution of the species. This is followed by a brief review of how prevailing ecological conditions influence human’s dependence on plants or animals to survive at different latitudes. We then document which animal species and groups are currently hunted and used for food, discuss the issue of wild meat markets particularly in Africa and set out our current knowledge of rates of wild meat consumption in different parts of the world. The chapter ends with an explanation of why this book has been conceived and how we can use accumulated knowledge on this subject to reduce wild meat exploitation to sustainable levels, by outlining the main pathways that enable us to understand human predatory behaviour and ways of balancing human and wildlife needs in the future.

Ensuring the sustainable management of wild meat use is challenging and complex, requiring a balance between sustainable development, food security and conservation. Available information and examples from more than four decades of research suggests that with the right enabling environment, political will and suitable legislation and governance, well-designed and participatory multi-sectoral wild meat supply is possible. Demand needs to be reduced to sustainable levels, at least for several species in some environments. In this chapter we discuss ways in which we can ‘close the gap’ between knowledge and action and ensure that wild meat use is balanced. We provide a comprehensive overview of what factors can guarantee sustainable wild meat use, taking into account the topics dealt with in the book overall. We end by suggesting how to improve wild meat governance and management worldwide so as to secure wildlife protection and food security in the long term.

Many diseases that affect humans are directly or indirectly connected to wild and domestic meat and to wildlife in general. All have different impacts ranging from mild to lethal. In this chapter we concentrate on those emerging zoonotic diseases which are directly linked to wild meat and which have the most serious impact on humans (mainly viral diseases). The chapter first reviews re-emerging zoonotic diseases, such as plague and yellow fever, and then describes zoonotic emerging diseases, including Ebola, SARS and the pandemic COVID-19. Our intention here is to catalogue and explain in some detail the most important zoonotic diseases. We continue by highlighting the risk factors likely to cause the emergence of such diseases, including wild meat hunting and trade and environmental changes. We end by proposing solutions.