Animals have always been important for human life due to the ecological, cultural, and economic functions that they represent. This has allowed building several kinds of relationships that have promoted different emotions in human societies. The objective of this review was to identify the main emotions that humans show toward wildlife species and the impact of such emotions on animal population management. We reviewed academic databases to identify previous studies on this topic worldwide. An analysis of the emotions on wildlife and factors causing them is described in this study. We identified a controversy about these emotions. Large predators such as wolves, coyotes, bears, big felids, and reptiles, such as snakes and geckos, promote mainly anger, fear, and disgust. This is likely due to the perceptions, beliefs, and experiences that societies have historically built around them. However, in some social groups these animals have promoted emotions such as happiness due to their values for people. Likewise, sadness is an emotion expressed for the threatening situations that animals are currently facing. Furthermore, we associated the conservation status of wildlife species identified in the study with human emotions to discuss their relevance for emerging conservation strategies, particularly focused on endangered species promoting ambiguous emotions in different social groups.

Background: Subsistence hunting is a traditional practice providing food and many other goods for households in the Yucatan Peninsula, southeast Mexico. Economic, demographic, and cultural change in this region drive wildlife habitat loss and local extinctions. Improving our understanding about current practices of wildlife use may support better management strategies for conserving game species and their habitat. We aimed to evaluate if wildlife use remained relevant for the subsistence of rural residents of the Yucatan Peninsula, as well as if local hunting practices were related to environmental, geographical, and cultural factors.Methods: Fieldwork was done between March 2010 and March 2011. Information was obtained through conversations, interviews, and participant observation. Record forms allowed recording animals hunted, biomass extracted, distance intervals to hunting sites, habitat types and seasonality of wildlife harvests. Data were analyzed using one-way Analysis of Variance, and Generalized Linear Models.Results: Forty-six terrestrial vertebrate species were used for obtaining food, medicine, tools, adornments, pets, ritual objects, and for sale and mitigating damage. We recorded 968 animals taken in 664 successful hunting events. The Great Curassow, Ocellated Turkey, paca, white-tailed deer, and collared peccary were the top harvested species, providing 80.7% of biomass (10,190 kg). The numbers of animals hunted and biomass extracted declined as hunting distances increased from villages. Average per capita consumption was 4.65 ± 2.7 kg/person/year. Hunting frequencies were similar in forested and agricultural areas.Discussion: Wildlife use, hunting patterns, and technologies observed in our study sites were similar to those recorded in previous studies for rural Mayan and mestizo communities in the Yucatan Peninsula and other Neotropical sites. The most heavily hunted species were those providing more products and by-products for residents. Large birds such as the Great Curassow and the Ocellated Turkey were extremely important for local hunters, representing around 40% of total prey taken.Final considerations: Our results suggest that hunting is frequent in our study areas. Low human densities allow low hunting pressure on most game species and favor conservation of the tropical forest. We suggest that co-management may help regulating hunting, prioritizing cultural practices of sustainable use and conservation for benefiting local users and animal populations.

Documenting the spectrum of ecosystem management, the roles of forestry and agricultural biodiversity, TEK, and human culture for food sovereignty, are all priority challenges for contemporary science and society. Ethnoagroforestry is a research approach that provides a theoretical framework integrating socio-ecological disciplines and TEK. We analyze in this study general types of Agroforestry Systems of México, in which peasants, small agriculturalist, and indigenous people are the main drivers of AFS and planning of landscape diversity use. We analyzed the actual and potential contribution of ethnoagroforestry for maintaining diversity of wild and domesticated plants and animals, ecosystems, and landscapes, hypothesizing that ethnoagroforestry management forms may be the basis for food sufficiency and sovereignty in Mexican communities, regions and the whole nation. We conducted research and systematization of information on Mexican AFS, traditional agriculture, and topics related to food sovereignty from August 2011 to May 2015. We constructed the database Ethnoagroforestry based on information from our own studies, other databases, Mexican and international specialized journals in agroforestry and ethnoecology, catalogues and libraries of universities and research centers, online information, and unpublished theses. We analyzed through descriptive statistical approaches information on agroforestry systems of México including 148 reports on use of plants and 44 reports on use of animals. Maize, beans, squashes and chili peppers are staple Mesoamerican food and principal crops in ethnoagroforestry systems practiced by 21 cultural groups throughout Mexico (19 indigenous people) We recorded on average 121 ± 108 (SD) wild and domesticated plant species, 55 ± 27% (SD) of them being native species; 44 ± 23% of the plant species recorded provide food, some of them having also medicinal, firewood and fodder uses. A total of 684 animal species has been recorded (17 domestic and 667 wild species), mainly used as food (34%). Ethnoagroforestry an emergent research approach aspiring to establish bases for integrate forestry and agricultural diversity, soil, water, and cultural richness. Its main premise is that ethnoagroforestry may provide the bases for food sovereignty and sustainable ecosystem management.

This paper records the meaning of the term 'offense' and the folk knowledge related to local beliefs and practices of folk medicine that prevent and treat snake bites, as well as the implications for the conservation of snakes in the county of Pedra Branca, Bahia State, Brazil. The data was recorded from September to November 2006 by means of open-ended interviews performed with 74 individuals of both genders, whose ages ranged from 4 to 89 years old. The results show that the local terms biting, stinging and pricking are synonymous and used as equivalent to offending. All these terms mean to attack. A total of 23 types of 'snakes' were recorded, based on their local names. Four of them are Viperidae, which were considered the most dangerous to humans, besides causing more aversion and fear in the population. In general, local people have strong negative behavior towards snakes, killing them whenever possible. Until the antivenom was present and available, the locals used only charms, prayers and homemade remedies to treat or protect themselves and others from snake bites. Nowadays, people do not pay attention to these things because, basically, the antivenom is now easily obtained at regional hospitals. It is understood that the ethnozoological knowledge, customs and popular practices of the Pedra Branca inhabitants result in a valuable cultural resource which should be considered in every discussion regarding public health, sanitation and practices of traditional medicine, as well as in faunistic studies and conservation strategies for local biological diversity.

Despite restrictive legal frameworks, hunting for meat is a reality in tropical countries. In this policy paper, we argue that formal regulations are ill adapted to the contexts in which they should be applied and are characterized by gaps and contradictions that maintain the sector in a limbo. We use contemporary examples from Latin America and Africa described in detail in publications ranging from 2015 to 2018, to illustrate the need for legal reforms that clarify the rights to sell surplus of meat and align land tenure rights with wildlife use rights to suggest a new definition of subsistence hunting which accounts for the realities of communities from different cultural backgrounds.

Background: Some Mayan peasant-hunters across the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico still carry out a hunting ritual –Loojil Ts’oon, Loj Ts’oon or Carbine Ceremony– in which they renew the divine permission for hunting in order to continue deserving the gift of prey after a period of hunt. Thus they are granted access to game by the gods and the Lords of the Animals, particularly the spirit/evil-wind call. This paper focuses on the acts within the Loojil Ts’oon –which is performed in the X-Pichil community and surrounding area– that make it unique among the hunting rituals performed in other parts of the Peninsula. Methods: The Loojil Ts’oon hunting ritual was observed and registered in audiovisual format in two different occasions in X-Pichil (Friday 04/29/2011 and Friday 07/29/2011). Afterwards, we delivered digital videodisks (DVD) to hunters and their families and to the j-men (the magic-medic-ritual specialist) who participated in these ceremonies. This delivery produced confidence among participants to talk more openly and in-depth about the Loojil Ts’oon, revealing symbolic, psychological, and material details previously unknown to outsiders. Qualitative information was obtained through the ethnographic method using techniques such as participant observation and guided tours. Semi-structured interviews were carried out to obtain complementary information. Results and discussion: On one hand, we describe the preparation and cleansing of the “Sip soup”, as well as its parading and distribution –delivery to the spirit/evil-wind Sip– on the streets of the community (highlingting the role of the rooster as a counter-gift). On the other hand, the cleansing of the jaws (of deer: Odocoileus virginianus, Mazama spp.; and peccaries: Tayassuidae) and their return to the Lords of Animals in the hills so that they may give these animals new life. Conclusions: By performing the Loojil Ts’oon, the act of killing an animal is legitimized. The kill transforms into an exchange to perpetuate life, in which gods and Lords of animals grant the hunter the solicited new game if he has completed his ritual duties and has not broken the prescribed hunting rules. The Loojil Ts’oon does not only represent the continuity and regeneration of animals, that is, fauna as a resource, but also of the whole hunting cycle. The hunter does so to maintain and recreate order and equilibrium in one’s relationship with nature as a whole, with the rest of one’s social group, and with oneself. Thus, hunting transcends the exclusively material dimension of a subsistence activity.