Persistence hunting

Persistence hunting (sometimes called endurance hunting or cursorial hunting) is a hunting technique in which hunters, who may be slower than their prey over short distances, use a combination of running, walking, and tracking to pursue prey until it is exhausted. Grey wolves, African wild dogs, spotted hyenas, lungless spiders, and humans are adapted to using this hunting strategy. In particular, humans can sweat to reduce body heat, while their quadrupedal prey needs to slow from a gallop in order to pant.

Today, persistence hunting is very rare among humans, and is seen only in a few groups such as Kalahari bushmen and the Tarahumara or Raramuri people of Northern Mexico. The technique requires endurance running—running long distances for extended periods of time—and among primates, endurance running is only seen in humans. Persistence hunting is thought to have been one of the earliest forms of human hunting, having evolved 2 million years ago.

Human persistence hunting

Persistence hunting in human evolution

Further information: Endurance running hypothesis

Persistence hunting was likely one of a number of tactics used by early hominins, and could have been practised with or without projectile weapons such as darts, spears, or slings.

As hominins adapted to bipedalism they would have lost some speed, becoming less able to catch prey with short, fast charges. They would, however, have gained endurance and become better adapted to persistence hunting. Although many mammals sweat, few have evolved to use sweating for effective thermoregulation, humans and horses being notable exceptions. This coupled with relative hairlessness would have given human hunters an additional advantage by keeping their bodies cool in the midday heat.

Humans also are uniquely able to carry water to drink while hunting.

Current practice

The persistence hunt is still practised by hunter-gatherers in the central Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa, and David Attenborough's documentary The Life of Mammals (program 10, "Food For Thought") showed a bushman hunting a kudu antelope until it collapsed. It is thought that the Tarahumara natives of northwestern Mexico in the Copper Canyon area may have also practiced persistence hunting. The procedure is not to spear the antelope or kudu from a distance, but to run it down in the midday heat, for about two to five hours over 25 to 35 km (16 to 22 mi) in temperatures of about 40 to 42 °C (104 to 108 °F). The hunter chases the kudu, which then runs away out of sight. By tracking it down at a fast running pace the hunter catches up with it before it has had enough time to rest in the shade. The animal is repeatedly chased and tracked down until it is too exhausted to continue running. The hunter then kills it at close range with a spear.

Persistence hunting has even been used against the fastest land animal, the cheetah. In November 2013, four Somali-Kenyan herdsmen from northeast Kenya successfully used persistence hunting in the heat of the day to capture cheetahs who had been killing their goats.

There is evidence that Western peoples, in the absence of hunting tools, have reverted to persistence hunting, such as the case of the Lykov family in Siberia.

Parforce hunting

The techniques of persistence hunting have developed on various levels in different parts of the world. From the middle ages, we know of the technique as parforce hunting taken from the French par force meaning 'with force'. In parforce hunting, the game is run up and exhausted by using a combination of mounted hunters and packs of dogs. When it is down, a selected hunter approaches and kills it with a hunting dagger and no firearms are used whatsoever. It was often seen as honorary to be allowed the final deathblow. This hunting method was adopted widely across Europe by the royalty and nobility and large deer parks are still around, as living witnesses of this specific hunting sports former popularity. Parforce hunting is illegal now.

See also

• Bernd Heinrich's book Why We Run, Harper Collins, 2002, p. 128.
• Tarahumara
• Tracking (hunting)
• Scott Carrier's book Running After Antelope describes the author's attempt at a persistence hunt in Middle America

External links

• This documentary shows a bushman hunting a kudu antelope until it collapsed.
• Daniel Lieberman talks about persistence hunting and barefoot running
• Mentions that the family "lacking guns and even bows, they could hunt only by digging traps or pursuing prey across the mountains until the animals collapsed from exhaustion."