Beyond the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation

“Anja Heister's Beyond the North American Model for Wildlife Conservation is an informed and passionate critique of the dark side of government-orchestrated exploitation and destruction of wildlife in the U.S. promoted by the archaic North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, and a guide for opening our hearts to compassionate conservation. She delves into the hard and disheartening facts of rampant violence in the practice of hunting and trapping and how ‘wildlife conservation’ has been hijacked by sportsmen. Heister successfully argues that it's high time to eradicate the ‘Wildlife Conservation-Industrial Killing Complex’ and bring compassion and justice to wild animals.” ---Marc Bekoff, The Animals' Agenda: Freedom, Compassion, and Coexistence in the Human Age and A Dog's World: Imagining the Lives of Dogs in a World Without Humans. The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation (NAM) is the driver of a stronganthropocentric stance, which has legalized an ongoing, annual exploitation of hundreds of millions of wild animals, who are killed in the United States through trapping, hunting and other lethal practices. Increasingly, the American public opposes the killing of wild animals for recreation, trophies and profit but has little—if any—knowledge of the Model. With a focus on trapping, this book exposes the NAM’s belief in human supremacy and its consequences for wild animals and their ecosystems, the same value that is driving the ongoing global destruction of nature and accelerating species extinction. Motivated by a deep concern for wild animals who suffer and whose lives are extinguished each year by ‘sportsmen and women’, this book exposes the violent treatment of wild animals inherent in governmental-promoted hunting and trapping programs, while emphasizing the importance of empathy and compassion for other animals in conservation and in our lives. Anja Heister, PhD, is an independent researcher, writer and life-long animal rights activist. A co-founder of Footloose Montana, an organisation working toward an end of trapping on public land in Montana, Anja is committed to social change for animals and publishes frequently on topics related to wild animal conservation, animal liberation, ethics and policy.