Big-game hunting in the context of "Body fat"

A professional hunter (less frequently referred to as market or commercial hunter and regionally, especially in Britain and Ireland, as professional stalker or gamekeeper) is a person who hunts and/or manages game by profession. Some professional hunters work in the private sector or for government agencies and manage species that are considered overabundant, others are self-employed and make a living by selling hides and meat, while still others guide clients on big-game hunts.

A safari (/səˈfɑːri/; from Swahili safari 'journey' originally from Arabic safar 'to journey') is an overland journey to observe or hunt wild animals, especially in East Africa. The so-called "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo – particularly form an important part of the safari market, both for wildlife viewing and big-game hunting.

The wild boar (Sus scrofa), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is now one of the widest-ranging mammals in the world, as well as the most widespread suiform. It has been assessed as least concern on the IUCN Red List due to its wide range, high numbers, and adaptability to a diversity of habitats. It has become an invasive species in part of its introduced range. Wild boars probably originated in Southeast Asia during the Early Pleistocene and outcompeted other suid species as they spread throughout the Old World.

As of 2005, up to 16 subspecies are recognized, which are divided into four regional groupings based on skull height and lacrimal bone length. The species lives in matriarchal societies consisting of interrelated females and their young (both male and female). Fully grown males are usually solitary outside the breeding season. The wolf is the wild boar's main predator in most of its natural range except in the Far East and the Lesser Sunda Islands, where it is replaced by the tiger and Komodo dragon respectively. The wild boar has a long history of association with humans, having been the ancestor of most domestic pig breeds and a big-game animal for millennia. Boars have also re-hybridized in recent decades with feral pigs; these boar–pig hybrids have become a serious pest wild animal in the Americas and Australia.

The royal hunt was an institution found throughout Eurasia and Northern Africa from antiquity until the early 19th century. It can be traced in ancient Egypt about 4000 years ago, but it lasted the longest in Iran, where it survived almost to the end of the Qajar dynasty. Its core area was the Iranian Plateau, North India amd Turkestan. Next to the core area were Anatolia, Mesopotamia and Transcaucasia. Even accounts of royal hunts from places as distant as Ethiopia and Qing China are so similar as to be nearly interchangeable.

The popularity of the royal hunt was correlated with the popularity of cavalry over infantry and with the presence of big game. It was inversely correlated with the popularity of hunting for sustenance. The royal hunt was not universal across Eurasia. It is not found, for instance, around the Mediterranean Sea in classical antiquity. Greek and Roman authors looked down on the Persian practice of hunting in enclosed parks. After the fall of Rome, however, the royal hunt gained prominence in Europe. The hunt as a "ritual of royalty" and a "force for [political] consensus" peaked during the reign of Charlemagne in the centuries after the fall of Rome. The royal forest as a hunting preserve dates to the Carolingian era.