section_path: Trophy hunting/Conservation tool
section_name: Conservation tool
paragraph_text: Conservation tool
  
  According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, hunting "provides an economic incentive" for ranchers to continue to breed those species, and that hunting "reduces the threat of the species' extinction."
  
  A scientific study in the journal, Biological Conservation, states that trophy hunting is of "major importance to conservation in Africa by creating economic incentives for conservation over vast areas, including areas which may be unsuitable for alternative wildlife-based land uses such as photographic ecotourism." However, another study states that less than 3% of a trophy hunters' expenditures reach the local level, meaning that the economic incentive and benefit is "minimal, particularly when we consider the vast areas of land that hunting concessions occupy."
  
  Financial incentives from trophy hunting effectively more than double the land area that is used for wildlife conservation, relative to what would be conserved relying on national parks alone according to Biological Conservation, although local communities usually derive no more than 18 cents per hectare from trophy hunting.
  
  Trophy hunting has been considered essential for providing economic incentives to conserve large carnivores according to research studies in Conservation Biology, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Wildlife Conservation by Sustainable Use, and Animal Conservation. Studies by the Centre for Responsible Tourism and the IUCN state that ecotourism, which includes more than hunting, is a superior economic incentive, generating twice the revenue per acre and 39 times more permanent employment. At the cross-section of trophy hunting, ecotourism and conservation is green hunting, a trophy hunting alternative where hunters pay to dart animals that need to be tranquilized for conservation projects.
  
  The U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources in 2016 concluded that trophy hunting may be contributing to the extinction of certain animals. Animal welfare organizations, including the International Fund for Animal Welfare, claim that trophy hunting is a key factor in the "silent extinction" of giraffes.
  
  According to a national survey that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducts every five years, fewer people are hunting, even as population rises. National Public Radio reported, a graph shows 2016 statistics, that only about 5 per cent of Americans, 16 years old and older, actually hunt, which is half of what it was 50 years ago. The decline in popularity of hunting is expected to accelerate over the next decade, which threatens how US will pay for conservation.