Empirical studies of tropical forest hunting have shown the existence of marked spatialgradients of hunting effort, game harvest, and animal abundance, as hunters mostlyhunt near villages, roads, and rivers. The mechanisms underlying these patterns have,however, hitherto been poorly known. This article presents a spatial bioeconomicmodel based on the concept of distance friction, i.e. an increasing marginal cost ofdistance. The model is validated by comparison with an economic field experimentwith Amazonian hunters and with previous empirical data on hunting.