The first in a series of articles examining the essentials of deer management using measurable and scientifically backed up data. An essential read for anyone involved in game management.

In Part 1 of the series, we meet Attila, an experienced keeper who had recently taken over a large estate in Hungary and discuss the challenges he faces in optimizing his deer population.

After being locked up inside for weeks now, many may be wondering what the origin is of the situation we’re in, as this virus outbreak likely arose from a wildlife management problem.

Scientists, by and large, believe the virus originated in bats before being transmitted to humans. These infected bats were believed to have been sold at a wet market in Wuhan, China. However, no one currently knows for certain so all we can do is speculate. 

Since then, our lives have been completely changed and the world won’t be the same anymore. 

As COVID-19 is affecting people and economies worldwide, you may wonder what kind of impact this has on hunting and wildlife. 

Is there something we can do about this? 

And more importantly, what can we learn from this situation?

These are difficult times for sure, and self isolation isn’t easy. As a community we’re more inclined to be outdoors than indoors - that’s for sure (stir crazy comes to mind:) ). So here’s our little handy HAMS guide to things you can be doing that are at least hunting related. If it stops another self-inflicted bowl haircut or someone pouring vegetable oil on their kitchen floor (really!) we’ll have done our job… 

As part of our ongoing series of articles, voices from the community, Katie Burrows (@katie_burrows16) shares her experiences and thoughts as a vegan that understands why hunting plays an essential role in wildlife conservation.

Okay, so I’m going to start this guest post with a few questions and I’d love you to answer them - honestly - because for a lot of us we often forget the reasons behind what we do. Why do you love field sports? ...

It is impossible to talk about hunting and game meat without mentioning ethics and the increasing human concern around meat consumption.

The future of wildlife is at stake.

Until we start harvesting game populations responsibly, we will never be able to manage wildlife in a sustainable manner.

This article takes an indepth look at the effects of over and under shooting game populations.

And, most importantly, what we should be doing instead.

As the brains, looks and charm behind the popular Instagram page @hamsofficial (we’re literally none of those things) we often get asked about our thoughts on how to run a successful hunting and shooting focused account without attracting unduly unpleasant attention and representing our way of life in a good light.

So here I’ve made a list of suggestions to help get your page off to a good start.

Hunting has been carried out for centuries and continues to play a vital part in the management of wildlife. Passed on through generations upon generations of families, it is still an important tradition.

However, if we want to continue, we need to proactively participate in responsible and accountable management based on numbers and facts. Because whether we like it or not, game management is about the numbers, year-by-year, season-by-season.

So, what numbers should we be collecting?

And what can we do with them?

In this article here at HAMS we are going to take a look at what monitoring and data collection means for wildlife management and what we can do with these numbers.

And lastly, why it’s so darn important.

Hunting has always been a way of life, it has dominated the course of human evolution for millions of years and is still a way of life for many millions of people closely connected to nature and the animal world.

It is also common knowledge that our ancestors were hunter-gatherers who used tools to obtain food, however, what is less commonly known is that the laws to manage animal populations were only established much, much later when modern humans noticed that certain species had started to decline, and in some cases, disappear.

So, in light of this knowledge, what would be the consequences if we stopped hunting?

What would happen to the wildlife populations and the land they live on if, as many that are opposed to hunting, we stopped intervening?