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INTRO:

The authors show that hunting improves ecosystem services where it is practiced, through cultural and provisional services. Furthermore, hunting enhances the conservation of game populations (by planting edges, maintaining ponds, opposing the use of biocides, etc.), the actions of hunters benefit many other species from all taxa. The authors focus on some relevant examples showing how sustainable hunting can act as a catalyst for game and non-game species. For example, the implementation of flower strips to provide a cover to grey partridges and the maintenance of ponds for water birds greatly increase the diversity of insects and birds that would, otherwise, be merely absent.

MERITS:

The topic is relevant for conservation worldwide. 

CRITIQUE:

It is little bit unclear are there any data, are the authors only providing a general framework or is this a review. I think it is OK to provide a general framework and discuss this matter, but it should be more explicit. Is this a global evalution of the matter or only in one country or area?

DISCUSSION:

This study has useful practical implications, but see my previous point to make them more apparent.

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INTRO:

The fact that hunters can act in accordance with biodiversity protection targets.

MERITS:

Examples of hunters' actions that benefit biodiversity are clear and understandable. The citizen science aspect is an important addition.

CRITIQUE:

The beginning of the manuscript on ecosystem services (ES) is weird, as the authors state that natural areas are usually not considered valuable in terms of ES. This is not the case. Quite the contrary, it is just those natural areas that provide the ecosystem services they are talking about. The link between fragmentation and degradation of areas and hunting is also weak - what is the point linking these? Instead, the authors could say that hunters are considered usually as one of the threats towards biodiversity and here they show that this is not always the case. The authors should, however, also mention that hunters are not only "good-doers" but they actually can have also negative effects on e.g. bird populations especially if the hunting quotas are local and the hunted bird species move from one country to another (common flyway management needed). In the end of the manuscript there is some repetition that should be removed.

DISCUSSION:

Authors should take more balanced viewpoint and present pros and cons in the actions of hunters, preferably referring to existing data, literature or both. The data used is not presented so this is hard to evaluate. Are hunters doing more good than harm, can we estimate this? Comparisons to other countries would be interesting, e.g. in Finland hunters are actively producing population estimates by counting game (or game tracks in winter) by using so called wildlife triangles and thus providing valuable data used to produce official statistics of game populations and decisions on hunting restrictions (if needed). However, hunters can also act negatively towards some game species, e.g. wolfs (see references).

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INTRO:

This work focuses on the benefits of hunting for the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Through the presentation they will show several examples of how hunting has been linked to biodiversity and ecosystem service conservation.

MERITS:

This work discusses the merits of hunting, which is often regarded as one of the main threats to the biodiversity globally. Knowing how to manage hunting with no loss in ecosystem services or biodiversity, and even enhancing it provides learning material for everyone wanting to make progress in conservation.

CRITIQUE:

This abstract requires further explanation of the methods employed. How did you select the studies (in case it is a literature review?) Is there any kind of statistical analysis? Is this a literature review? Is this spacially explicit modelling? I think this must be stated clearly. Also, the discussion lacks some kind of perspective, where your results should be contrasted with conflicting studies: what differs your study from a plethora of studies that show negative effects of hunting? It is not my intention to underestimate these interesting claims, but I think bigger learning would come from knowing in which cases hunting is a good option for conservation.

DISCUSSION:

If I have understood correctly, several examples of good hunting practices will be given throughout the presentation. It will be very important for the Conservation Biology discipline to learn from those practices, and therefore I think this work might be very relevant to the congress.