Welfare challenges for markhor — the national animal of Pakistan — navigating hunting pressure and habitat fragmentation.
Markhor welfare in wild populations is shaped by the interplay of predation pressure, habitat availability, and human management. Community-based conservation programs — which share trophy hunting revenue with local communities — have produced genuine population recovery, demonstrating that economic incentives for conservation can improve both population viability and individual welfare by reducing direct persecution. However, competition with domestic livestock remains a chronic welfare stressor, and disease transmission from domestic goats poses ongoing risks. The markhor recovery story is instructive as a model of how aligned community interests can produce welfare and conservation benefits simultaneously.