Hunting Restrictions

Hunting Restrictions (Japanese 狩猟制限) are restrictions enforced by the Hunter's Guild for hunting certain monsters.

What Monsters Are Permitted To Be Hunted?
The Hunter's Guild permits hunts on monsters that don't affect the environment majorly, even if hunted, along with monsters that could majorly destroy settlements and easily kill civilians if left unchecked. If monsters don't fit these permitted requirements, then they can't be hunted limitless by hunters. In some rare cases, the Hunter's Guild will send hunters to protect said monsters like Cha-Cha and Kayamba for example.

What Happens If A Hunter Doesn't Follow This Restriction?
If a hunter doesn't follow the hunting restrictions given by the Hunter's Guild and instead force the hunt on a targeted monster, they'll be severely punished by the Guild. Going against the hunting restrictions is considered to be poaching by the Hunter's Guild, meaning that hunter will either be erased from society or even killed at the hands of a Guild Knight.

Natural Disasters
If a major threat is approaching, such as Lao-Shan Lung, the hunting restriction will be lifted off said monster. This is to ensure the safety of the public, preventing any possible casualties, or to protect the surrounding the environment from ecological damage.

Cases
There are three cases of Hunting Restrictions: Monster Populations (Japanese ケース1:モンスターの個体数管理目的), Hunter's Safety (Japanese ケース2:ハンターの安全確保目的), and Quest Conditions (Japanese ケース3:クエストの方針上の理由).

Case 1: Monster Populations
Hunters are well-known for hunting monsters that are causing trouble in a surrounding place, but even the weapons of a hunter could harm the environment, thus affecting the natural world. Due to this reason, there are restrictions set against hunting a large number of monsters, unless quests, authorized by the Hunter's Guild, keep coming up regularly on a monster species. For example, hunting maybe restricted during the breeding season for Mizutsune due to the fear of overhunting the species. However, if an individual poses a threat to the public, then a hunter will be promoted to hunt it down. If a monster doesn't threaten the lives of civilians, than it isn't seen as a threat. Three recent cases of this was Yukumo Village's Zinogre outbreak, the Seregios invasion, and finally the Baruragaru invasion.

Case 2: Hunter's Safety
In order to undertake guild-sponsored quests, one must first register themselves as an official monster hunter under the Hunter's Guild. Following this, hunters are given a specific measure of personal skill or "hunter rank" (often shortened to HR) through which the Hunter's Guild can gauge one's ability to undertake varying levels of hunting requests. In accordance with this, the guild will assign rankings, often on a number-of-stars basis, to quests listings to ensure that dangerous or difficult quests are only embarked upon by skilled hunters who have proven their aptitude. This is both to ensure the safety of its hunters and to ensure that the request is properly completed. If hunters are extremely skilled, they will sometimes be sent to do secret requests or investigations for extremely dangerous monsters. They will do these quests secretly so it won't cause a panic to the public, in order to get a better understanding of said situation, because in some cases it is just a false alarm, and so the Hunter's Guild can come up with the proper actions needed to protect the truth or the public without causing a panic.

Case 3: Quest Conditions
This is the rarest of all cases for hunters. Quest Conditions could tell hunters to avoid hunting another monster, to only break a certain part of a monster's body, or even to avoid breaking a single part of a monster.