Hunting as Conservation in the United States – Sustaining Suitable Habitat

In aggregating the increasing information being collected on the value of goods and services that natural and semi-natural ecosystems provide, de Groot, Wilson, and Boumans attempted to create a standardized view to assess the economic valuation of ecosystem functions (2002). One of the ecosystem functions mentioned in their system is the Nursery function, which is associated with the process of reproducing suitable habitats (de Groot et al, 2002). The authors list the hunting of game, fishing, and the gathering of fruits and vegetation as examples of goods and services that play a role in fulfilling this function of nature (2002). This paper aims to analyze how hunting can help to fulfill this function, both in an economic and ecological sense. The exact question at hand is this – what role does hunting play in the conservation, sustainability, and protection of animal populations and habitat in the United States? We will focus on roughly the previous 100 years, from the early 1900s to the present. This paper will be organized into two sections. The first will explore the research question, examining potential reasonable answers based on general data, economic theory, and historical developments. The second will discuss the research question through the lens of the Veblenian Dichotomy, while analyzing how this tool could be useful in such research.