The principle objective of our efforts was to contribute towards a fundamental understanding of how climate affects large mammal populations directly and indirectly through food distribution and the harvesting process. The main novelty of our project has been to address indirect effects of climate change operating through food distribution and the harvesting process on large mammal populations in a coherent analytical framework. This topic has not been addressed at such a broad scale previously, and we expected that the collective efforts of these top researchers working with the excellent databases that we have amassed will result in a major leap in our understanding of the effects of climate change on large mammals. We brought together internationally leading experts on the importance of climate variation on the life history and behavior of large mammals, and importantly with the theoretical and methodological tool kit required to achieve our ambitious goals.