ABSTRACT
Evolutionary ecologists have approached the problem, that subsistence hunters do not conserve prey resources, by using foraging theory to show that subsistence hunters prefer short-term returns over the potential long-term returns generated by resource conservation. It has long been suggested that game conservation is characteristic of many traditional people living in subsistence economies. The opportunity costs of killing an animal accrue from being unable to eat its descendants. Rogers has calculated an evolutionary discount rate by replacing utility, the standard currency used by economists, with biological fitness. Few ecological environments in the evolutionary past would have provided a selection regime that favored conservative behavior. The ownership required for conservation might be described as a norm between a number of cooperators. Individuals who subscribe to the norms share a common understanding of the circumstances that determine who can and who can not use available resources.
