6 

 1986, 1988). Taken together, these studies provide much useful information about the nature and 

 extent of human hunting, but they have limited use in applications to other issues. 



In order to overcome the limitations of these anthropological and biological studies about 

 hunting and to examine critically the issue of the sustainability of subsistence hunting, integrated studies 

 are needed. These studies must provide data on what kinds of wildlife are hunted and, simultaneously, 

 what kinds of wildlife are potentially available to hunters (Redford and Robinson, 1990). 



Garden Hunting 



The specific methods of subsistence hunting in the Neotropics vary considerably among groups 

 of indigenous people with respect to species taken, technology used, timing and duration of hunts, and 

 where the hunt is undertaken (cf., Hames and Vickers, 1983) One place where hunting frequently 

 occurs is in the gardens planted by local residents. Hunting in gardens has been described for many 

 indigenous groups, including the Achuara-Jivaro of Peru (Ross, 1978); the Yanomama (Smole, 1976) 

 and Ye'kwana of Venezuela (Hames, 1980); the Lacandon Maya of Mexico (Nations and Nigh, 1980); 

 the Yukpa, along the frontier between Venezuela and Colombia (Ruddle, 1974); the Miskito Indians of 

 coastal Nicaragua (Neitschmann, 1972, 1973); the Sirion6 of Bolivia (Holmberg, 1969); and the 

 Kayap6 (Posey, 1982, 1985) and Ka'apor (Balee, 1985) of Brazil. In general, these studies have 

 quantified hunting or have described game use, but they have not demonstrated diat this game harvest is 

 part a system where the wild animals actually are managed by the local residents. 



Linares (1976) was the first to propose diat subsistence hunting by indigenous people in the 

 Nootropics was something more than hunters taking wild animals where the wild animals were 

 abundant or easy to harvest. Based on archeological evidence, Linares (1976) proposed that, prior to 

 the arrival of Columbus, indigenous people at Cerro Brujo, Panama, practiced a type of wildlife 

 management in which they planted crops in gardens and hunted the wild animals that fed incidentally on 

 these crops. This game-procurement system, according to an analysis of about 6,000 bones from 

 refuse piles at two occupation sites, appeared to be selective in that only a certain group of terrestrial 



