Does trophy hunting actually help animal conservation?

The following is an extract from our nature newsletter Wild Wild Life. Sign up to receive it for free in your inbox every month.

I would never kill an animal for fun. But although I can’t imagine I would enjoy fishing or hunting, I recognise that many people do. Among them is a smaller subset of people who engage in trophy hunting, one of conservation’s most divisive issues. It’s often claimed that trophy hunting does more good than harm, by ensuring land and animals are more protected than they…