Beyond the Grocery Store: Understanding America’s Wild Meat Harvest

A blog post about the paper The Magnitude, Value and Economic Cost of Replacing Wild Meat Obtained Through “Recreational” Big Game Hunting in the United States by Shane P. Mahoney and Richard D. Honor

Hunting can be a controversial practice, especially when viewed as conducted for unnecessary reasons. For many, it is also difficult to understand why anyone would choose to hunt and consume wild animals. Obviously, domestic animals are not afforded the same level of sympathy — domestic meat consumption remains widely accepted in society and the scale of this consumption is staggering. In the United States, 29.8 million cattle, 124 thousand calves, 128 million hogs, 2.1 million lambs, 150 thousand sheep, 9.7 billion chickens and 191 million turkeys were slaughtered in 2025 alone¹. Clearly, public support for these two sources of meat is very different. For example, over 95% of Britons consume meat^2,3 but only 71% of Britons support hunting for food⁴. The reasons behind this dichotomy are complex; however, it may largely derive from the different ways we perceive wild and domestic animals. For whatever reasons, animal death is readily evoked when imagining hunting, while the lives and slaughter of billions of domestic animals are somehow separated from the minds of consumers when eating their flesh.

Social acceptance of hunting can depend on the hunter’s ethnicity and culture,their food security status, the animal being hunted (e.g., age and sex), and the personal motivations of the hunter (i.e., do they hunt because they enjoy it, or for other reasons), even if the meat is consumed⁴. This is a sharp contrast from domestic meat consumption, which is generally acceptable regardless of the consumers’ ethnicity, motivations, food security status, or the age and sex of the animal (e.g., veal, lamb). For instance, although a healthy diet^2,5 and lower environmental footprint^6,7 can be obtained in the absence of domestic meat production, people consume it because they enjoy the taste. Domestic meat is also consumed for sport (e.g. eating contests), as part of tourism experiences, and for luxury and indulgence that require enormous agricultural inputs (e.g., wagyu beef, all-you-can-eat, etc.). Yet, such practices are widely accepted in society.

Several terms characterize hunting practices (e.g., “recreational”, “subsistence”, “bushmeat” hunting, etc.). These terms can invoke preconceptions that do not hold true for everyone engaging in each activity, who vary in terms of geopolitical region, socioeconomic status, culture, etc. For instance, with relatively little controversy, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and many European Union member states offer international hunting to non-residents who are motivated to hunt for the experience and can keep a memento of the animal they harvest⁸. Yet, when the same practice occurs in Africa, it is widely recognized as “trophy hunting” and is perhaps the most controversial hunting practice in the world.  

These preconceptions have likely influenced academic research on wild meat. While the scale and importance of wild meat have been researched extensively in the case of “wild meat / bushmeat” hunting in various regions of Africa, and “subsistence” hunting in arctic and tropical communities, the scale and importance wild meat procured through “recreational” hunting in highly developed temperate region countries has received little research attention. In our new article, we shed light on the wild meat obtained through regulated hunting in the United States and evaluate what it would cost to replace this wild meat with domestic meat products.

We compiled harvest records from state wildlife agencies for large animals(ungulates, black bear and alligator) and, using published data, estimated the edible mass, protein, and caloric content of the meat derived from these harvests. We also utilized national retail price, dietary survey, and nutrient content datasets, to characterize the type and cost of store-bought meat consumed by Americans.

We found that hunters in the United States harvest approximately 7.5 million large animals each year, which produces about 236,000 tons of wild meat in the United States. This is equivalent to roughly 1.4 billion meals (based on 6-ounce servings) and provides more than 52,000 tons of protein annually. At a national scale, Americans actually consume substantially more wild meat than lamb and veal combined. We estimated that replacing the protein provided by wild meat with protein from grocery-store domestic meats would cost approximately $4.2 billion per year (2024 USD).

These results demonstrate that, although hunting in this economically advanced region is generally characterized as “recreational”, it provides a sustainable source of meat for millions of people and makes a meaningful contribution to food production nationally. Replacing this wild meat with increased domestic livestock production would have negative implications for conservation, ecosystem protection, local economies and regional food security. This article highlights the contribution of wild meat to food systems in the United States and challenges preconceptions of “recreational” hunting as frivolous and/or unrelated to basic human health. This work is part of the Conservation Visions’ Wild Harvest Initiative® which was launched in 2015 with the aim of shedding light on the economic and ecological value of wild food systems, and the conservation policy relevance of harvesting wild foods in understudied regions, particularly in the global north.

Read the full article here:

The Magnitude, Value and Economic Cost of Replacing Wild Meat Obtained Through “Recreational” Big Game Hunting in the United States

Supporting Information

1.          USDA ERS. Livestock and Meat Domestic Data. USDA, Economic Research Service calculations using data from USDA, World Agricultural Outlook Board, ‘World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates.’ (2025) https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/livestock-and-meat-domestic-data

2.          Petermann-Rocha, F. et al. Vegetarians, fish, poultry, and meat-eaters: who has higher risk of cardiovascular disease incidence and mortality? A prospective study from UK Biobank. Eur. Heart J. 42, 1136–1143 (2021). https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/42/12/1136/6032616

3.          United Kingdom Office for Health Improvement & Disparities. National Diet and Nutrition Survey 2019 to 2023: report. GOV.UK (2024). https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-diet-and-nutrition-survey-2019-to-2023/national-diet-and-nutrition-survey-2019-to-2023-report

4.          YouGov. Where does the British public stand on hunting? (2024). https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/50958-where-does-the-british-public-stand-on-hunting

5.          Wang, T., Masedunskas, A., Willett, W. C. & Fontana, L. Vegetarian and vegan diets: benefits and drawbacks. Eur. Heart J. 44, 3423–3439 (2023). https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/44/36/3423/7224412

6.          Scarborough, P. et al. Vegans, vegetarians, fish-eaters and meat-eaters in the UK show discrepant environmental impacts. Nat. Food 4, 565–574 (2023). https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-023-00795-w

7.          Hilborn, R., Banobi, J., Hall, S. J., Pucylowski, T. & Walsworth, T. E. The environmental cost of animal source foods. Front. Ecol. Environ. 16, 329–335 (2018). https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/fee.1822

8.          Bookyourhunt. Hunting Map (2026). https://www.bookyourhunt.com/en/huntingmap?sort=Popular