Recreational Hunting and Sustainable Wildlife Use in North America

Upon North America's settlement by Europeans wildlife, harvested for commercial use, suffered great losses in population numbers. The North American Model emerged as a sustainable solution to manage wildlife by maintaining wildlife as a public trust, prohibiting the commerce of wildlife products, allocating wildlife by law, using wildlife for legitimate purposes, preserving hunting for all, recognizing wildlife as an international resource, and using science as the basis for management and policy. The North American Model drives how wildlife agencies are funded and how these agencies set quotas. While effective, the North American Model is not without its challenges such as privatization and a declining number of hunters.