> but people eat wild mammals on a regular basis.

Not in meaningful quantity. It would bet that the median time since a typical Westerner last had wild mammal could be measured in months if not years.

I'd bet a typical westerner has never eaten wild mammal meat.

I expect the statement in born from the misconception that "game" meat as found in restaurants and for sale is from wild animals, when it is actually farmed.

It is quite common here to shot deer to keep it under control and it gets sold to local butchers.

At least in germany.

My father is also a hunter.

Its looks like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=jaeger+deutschland&tbm=isch&...

> I expect the statement in born from the misconception that "game" meat as found in restaurants and for sale is from wild animals, when it is actually farmed.

If we assume that about the bison and venison I have had over the years, it has been at least over a decade for me. Not sure if we farm muskrats.

At least in Austria there is a game season (hunting is quite big) and game meat is in abundance.

>Not in meaningful quantity.

Enough wild meat to introduce a new Virus and pandemic though.

probably not if most families in Sydney and Melbourne went out hunting.

And our ability to manage wild animals is worse than our ability to farm. It's hugely politically negative to reduce the number's allowed, and there is always pressure for more even when counter to the evidence that it is detrimental.

How many species of fish will go extinct before we figure this out. Fish used to be very common(look at the stories of the colonists coming to North America). Also, people are still eating bluefin tuna, it's endangered.