Hunting can refer to a number of things including the chasing and killing of an animal for food, sport or recreational purposes. There are now set rules in place as to when and where you can hunt, there are also different seasons for different types of animal. Hunted animals are referred to as game animals, and are usually large mammals or migratory birds.

By definition, hunting strictly speaking excludes killing of individual animals that have become dangerous to humans and the killing of non-game animals, domestic animals, or vermin as a means of pest control. Although there are situations where hunting is used as a form of wildlife control so the number of animals living in an environment don't become too over crowded for what the area can handle.

There are certain situations where this comes in very useful because the number of some animals in certain areas can rise above what the area can sustain. In some cases with animals that spread disease for example it can become important to reduce the number of animals quickly because of health and safety for the people in that area.

Hunting reduces the annual crop of new animals and birds to allow the remaining animals sufficient feed and shelter to survive. Some environmentalists assert that introducing appropriate predator animals would achieve the same benefit with more efficiency and less environmental impact, but some livestock owners disagree, seeing human killing as more explicitly selective.