This is designed to show how zooarchaeology can productively inform conservation science. It offers a set of case studies that use animal remains from archaeological and paleontological sites to provide information that has direct implications for wildlife management and conservation biology. It also introduces conservation biologists to zooarchaeology, a sub-field of archaeology and ethnobiology, and provides a brief historical account of the development of applied zooarchaeology.

Steve Wolverton is an associate professor of geography at the University of North Texas. He is an ecologist and archaeologist specializing in the palaeozoology of North America during the Holocene. R. Lee Lyman is a professor of anthropology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has published widely on the value of zooarchaeology for conservation biology, including Zooarchaeology and Conservation Biology (co-edited by Kenneth P. Cannon), and other zooarchaeology topics, including quantitative paleozoology.