Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Large carnivores have historically been persecuted, which led to the eradication of many populations and brought others to the brink of extinction. Since the 1950s–1960s, regulated hunting has been a widespread management option in many large carnivore populations. Besides direct numerical effects on population size, removing large carnivores can have a variety of more or less subtle impacts. In this chapter, we discuss the direct effects caused by individual removal and other demographic effects, such as changes in sex and age structure. We continue by discussing the effects of hunting on the social behaviour of large carnivores, such as territory turnover, disruption, or group dissolution. We also touch upon evolutionary, selective effects of hunting, and behavioural responses of carnivores, which may also impact other species, given the role that apex predators can play in ecosystems. We conclude that direct and indirect effects are interconnected. Removing individuals affects population sizes, and the responses of survivors to hunting can lead to a complex cascade of hunting-caused changes that reverberate at the population level. For instance, hunting can alter age and sex classes in the population and thus its growth rate, usually inducing changes in the social structure and individual behaviours. This in turn can affect the demographic structure of populations of both solitary and group-living species. These interacting processes should be considered by management agencies for making decisions that are compatible with long-term conservation of large carnivores and the ecosystems they inhabit.</jats:p>