Persistence hunting (sometimes called endurance hunting or cursorial hunting) is a hunting technique in which hunters, who may be slower than their prey over short distances, use a combination of running, walking, and tracking to pursue prey until it is exhausted. Grey wolves, African wild dogs, spotted hyenas, lungless spiders, and humans are adapted to using this hunting strategy. A persistence hunter must be able to run a long distance over an extended period of time.
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Humans are the only surviving primate species who practise persistence hunting. In addition to a capacity for endurance running, human hunters have comparatively little hair, which makes sweating an effective means of cooling the body. Meanwhile, ungulates and other mammals may need to pant to cool down enough, which also means that they must slow down.
Persistence hunting is believed to have been one of the earliest hunting strategies used by humans. It is still used effectively by the San people in the Kalahari Desert, and by the Rarámuri people of Northwestern Mexico.
Persistence hunting in human evolution
Persistence hunting was likely one of a number of tactics used by early hominins, and could have been practised with or without projectile weapons such as darts, spears, or slings.
As hominins adapted to bipedalism they would have lost some speed, becoming less able to catch prey with short, fast charges. They would, however, have gained endurance and become better adapted to persistence hunting. Although many mammals sweat, few have evolved to use sweating for effective thermoregulation, humans and horses being notable exceptions. This coupled with relative hairlessness would have given human hunters an additional advantage by keeping their bodies cool in the midday heat.
Current practice
The persistence hunt is still practiced by hunter-gatherers in the central Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa, and David Attenborough's documentary The Life of Mammals (program 10, "Food For Thought") showed a bushman hunting a kudu antelope until it collapsed. It is thought that the Tarahumara natives of northwestern Mexico in the Copper Canyon area may have also practiced persistence hunting. The procedure is not to spear the antelope or kudu from a distance, but to run it down in the midday heat, for about two to five hours over 25 to 35 km (16 to 22 mi) in temperatures of about 40 to 42 °C (104 to 108 °F). The hunter chases the kudu, which then runs away out of sight. By tracking it down at a fast running pace the hunter catches up with it before it has had enough time to rest in the shade. The animal is repeatedly chased and tracked down until it is too exhausted to continue running. The hunter then kills it at close range with a spear.
Persistence hunting has even been used against the fastest land animal, the cheetah. In November 2013, four Somali-Kenyan herdsmen from northeast Kenya successfully used persistence hunting in the heat of the day to capture cheetahs who had been killing their goats.
There is evidence that Western peoples, in the absence of hunting tools, have reverted to persistence hunting, such as the case of the Lykov family in Siberia.
Parforce hunting
The techniques of persistence hunting have developed on various levels in different parts of the world. From the middle ages, we know of the technique as parforce hunting taken from the French par force meaning 'by force'. In parforce hunting, the game is run up and exhausted by using a combination of mounted hunters and packs of dogs. When it is down, a selected hunter approaches and kills it with a hunting dagger and no projectiles are used. It was often seen as honourary to be allowed the final deathblow. This hunting method was adopted widely across Europe by the royalty and nobility and large deer parks are still around, as living witnesses of this specific hunting sports former popularity.