ABSTRACT Nearly 70% of all primate species with available data are threatened with extinction. Hunting (i.e., wild animals either killed or live‐captured) is a major contributor to primate population decline, impacting ~70% of all species. Using a large dataset of species' hunting status and body mass, we evaluated the spatial and phylogenetic patterns of hunting and threat status. We modeled both hunting and extinction risk as predicted by body mass and evolutionary distinctiveness (ED). We found that the subset of hunted primates is not random taxonomically or across biogeographic regions, and that the likelihood of a species being hunted increases with body mass, particularly in the American Tropics. Globally, extinction risk increased with body mass and ED. Within biogeographic regions, body mass was also related to extinction risk, and in the American Tropics evolutionarily distinct species had higher likelihoods of being threatened with extinction. In the American Tropics, 54% of species were reported to be threatened by hunting, whereas this was 70% for Africa and 89% for Asia, indicating geographic disparity in hunting patterns that could bias our results. We encourage researchers to consider the intricate relationships among species' body mass, life history traits, and hunting in conservation planning, and recommend incorporating information on local cultural hunting patterns and purposes in developing place‐based conservation initiatives.
Arregoitia et al. (Mon,) studied this question.