Food security as a secondary benefit of human-wildlife conflict management

Abstract More than 2.3 billion people globally experience food insecurity. Concurrently, rapidly increasing human populations and effective conservation have resulted in greater need for human-wildlife conflict mitigation. This opinion article considers how lethal control of some wildlife species during human-wildlife conflict management can simultaneously advance food security as a secondary benefit. In the case of the United States, one federal agency donated 117–148 mt of meat annually during 2020–2023 from wildlife killed during conflict mitigation to programs addressing food insecurity, providing up to 1.74 million meals at a replacement cost of $1.7 million US. Though limitations exist in providing wild meat to people experiencing food insecurity, such as palatability and disease risk which can reduce cost effectiveness, species generally used for human consumption (e.g., recreationally-hunted species) killed during human-wildlife conflict mitigation should be used when possible to advance food security.