Wild animals are a potentially renewable natural resource. This means that they can be harvested in a sustainable fashion, as long as then birth rate is greater than the rate of exploitation by humans. In the sense meant here, "harvesting" refers to the killing of wild animals as a source of meat, fur, antlers, or other useful products, or as an outdoor sport. The harvesting can involve trapping, or hunting using guns, bows-and-arrows, or other weapons. (Fishing is also a kind of hunting, but it is not dealt with here). From the ecological perspective, it is critical that the exploitation is undertaken in a sustainable fashion; otherwise, serious damages are caused to the resource and to ecosystems more generally.

Unfortunately, there have been numerous examples in which wild animals have been harvested at grossly unsustainable rates, which caused their populations to decline severely. In...