Why is Poaching so hard to Fight? Part 1 of 4

Why is Poaching so hard to fight?

Part 1 of 4: Poaching in General

 

Introduction

In my previous entries I have contended that poaching is a serious crime, that it has potentially grim economic, social, health, environmental and security implications, and that the only people that truly profit from it are criminal entities and individuals. If this is all true, then evidently it is in the interests of the majority of people and countries for poaching to be eradicated even if the often contentious and personal issue of animal welfare was removed from the equation.

Unfortunately, while poaching is widely regarded as an ugly problem, it is usually poorly understood by decision makers, the press, and the general public in both the market and source countries, and hence communally we possess a weak understanding of how best to fight it.

This blog entry is the first in a series that will cover why I believe the different types of poaching are so difficult to fight. It is important to remember that as poaching is so diverse it is impossible for any of these entries to be entirely comprehensive; their purpose is to function more as a contextual foundation block for future research on an individual basis.

 

Why answer this question?

I have been asked by several people over the past few months a question along the lines of “So why can’t we just stop the poachers? Surely it isn’t that hard!” While this is an innocent question driven somewhat by exasperation on the part of passionate people angry at the illicit wildlife trade, it also demonstrates quite starkly one of the key problems in the struggle against wildlife crime: poor popular understanding. By increasing the general level of awareness and understanding, we increase our chances of defeating poaching as we will be better able to adapt and respond to the challenges posed by it and develop effective legal and enforcement counter measures. It also helps to provide people with a greater appreciation and understanding for the challenges faced by conservationists, law enforcement, anti-poaching units and sympathetic decision makers.

Thus, the primary purpose of this series of blog entries is to aid in the awareness and understanding of why poaching is so hard to fight. By highlighting these issues, over the next few weeks I will argue and provide reasons as to why it is both futile and reckless to approach the fight against poaching from only one angle or in only one area. Our approach must be holistic.

 

Understanding the dynamics:

One of the first challenges when fighting poaching is realising that poaching is not uniform and hence the challenges it poses and the best strategies for its eradication vary considerably. Indeed, it is all-but irresponsible to try and approach poaching as a singular crime. The commercial poaching of exotic birds for the pet industry in South America occurs for different reasons, in different jurisdictions, under different laws and by different actors than the subsistence poaching of impala for food in southern Africa or the killing of tigers for the harvesting of their parts for use in traditional medicine in parts of Asia. While there is a certain degree of overlap regarding elements of their characteristics, each is a unique crime which presents a distinct set of enforcement, protection, monitoring and educative challenges. They must be thought of and approached as such.

 

Understanding the criminal dimension:

Crime, whether it be stealing a packet of chewing gum from the corner store, murder, or poaching, requires three things: means, motive and opportunity. Means refers to ability to commit the crime, motive refers to the reason(s) a person has for committing the crime, and opportunity to the chance they had to physically perpetrate the crime. When considering the fight against poaching, it is beneficial to consider how each of these three can influence wildlife crime.

Means: The means to commit basic-level poaching are not expensive, complex or specialist. With a few exceptions, most poaching is done on foot and requires little in the way of equipment. Rhino poaching can be done with an old rifle and a hack saw, capturing of birds can be done with a fishing net, and the taking of bush meat may only involve an old piece of fencing wire fashioned into a snare and an axe/knife if the carcass is too big to carry whole.

Motive: There are various motives behind poaching. Subsistence poaching is generally motivated by hunger, poor economic status, desperation, a lack of other opportunities, or laziness. Commercial poaching on the other hand is driven solely by the desire for profit, and the profits involved are influenced by the traditional factors of supply and demand. More on this later.

Opportunity: The opportunity to commit poaching is affected by a number of factors such as the presence of target species, access to locations, the level and quality of security (rangers, guards, fences around reserves, etc), the characteristics of local laws, the level and type of enforcement capability, and others.

 

Their relative importance

It is hard to accurately measure the weight and influence of these three characteristics when considering their enabling effect on the prevalence of different types of poaching around the world. However, some assumptive generalisations can be made for the purposes of guidance. For example, as the type of equipment needed is generally quite basic and readily available, and the number and level of human skills required to commit poaching is not high, it is therefore reasonable to conclude that reducing poaching by targeting the ‘means’ will not produce significant and sustainable results. The balance of this conclusion is that, when considering the fight against poaching, the critical areas for focus are motive and opportunity.

 

The influence of motive

The influence of motive is significant because without adequate motive poaching – or any crime – would not occur. Poachers do not act out of simple disdain for wildlife or in pursuit of its arbitrary annihilation; poachers act because there is something in it for them, whether that be a simple meal for themselves or their family or a substantial monetary profit. In short, they commit poaching because it pays.

The question of why it pays has a remarkably simple answer: it pays because people want what the poachers provide. The demand for wildlife products – whether it be rhino horn, ivory, tiger bones, exotic birds, or the hundreds of others – is the solitary reason as to why the illegal networks that hunt these products exist. In this way, the illicit trade in wildlife is no different from any of the legitimate product markets we have contact with every day. For example, if no one wanted to drink cola any more, no company would make cola; if no one wanted to drive or own cars, no company would make cars. In the same way, if all of a sudden people had zero interest in acquiring, consuming or owning wildlife products, poaching would lose its financial incentive and the trade would expire. Hence, the demand for wildlife product is both the greatest threat to the survival of many species and the only reason why poachers do what they do.

 

The influence of opportunity

As with motive, opportunity plays a significant role in determining the location, prevalence and type of wildlife crime. As long as there is demand, poachers will attempt to satisfy that demand and will predominately do so by targeting locations that offer the least resistance.

It is for this reason that establishing robust security, patrol and defence systems is vital for high-risk wilderness areas, private reserves and national parks. Among other strategies, we can decrease poaching ‘opportunity’ through actions such as securing the areas in which poachers are operating, by increasing surveillance, by tightening local and international laws regarding the illicit wildlife trade, by sharpening our capacity to detect wildlife products in transit, or by increasing the level of international cooperation regarding the pursuit and prosecution of offenders.

While this sounds rather straightforward on paper there are daunting practical impediments to actually achieving many of these things. Poaching is a global crime and hence effective poaching counter measures to reduce ‘opportunity’ require clear, concerted and sustained efforts on the part of numerous actors across a tremendous physical area. This necessitates resources, political will and clear strategy on the part of all parties involved, and these are usually parties with differing political objectives and values.

 

 

Wrapping up…

Identifying and then understanding a problem is the first step to fixing it. If we are ever to drastically reduce the pervasiveness and influence of the illicit wildlife trade we need first to comprehend the reasons for the trade’s existence.

While this may sound like I am advocating education and awareness above all other strategies for mitigating poaching, I am not. As will be shown over the coming weeks, there are critical reasons why we must continue to fight poaching at every level: on the ground, in the media, in our houses of parliament and in our communities.

 

Andy
Int. Anti-Poaching Foundation
www.iapf.org

 

Why is poaching such a problem?

Poaching is a problem for a number of different reasons which extend far beyond the popular view that the only reason we fight poaching is to save the life of an animal here or there.

In discussing these impacts it is helpful to break the effects down into different categories.

Environmental Impacts

The environmental impacts of poaching are sometimes clearly visible and sometimes much harder to identify, at least in the short term. The most obvious impact is a depletion in the number of wildlife present in a given area. The defaunation of an area due to poaching flows from the immediate impact of killing an existing animal, the medium term effect of reducing breeding numbers and hence the rate of reproduction, and the long term effects of thinning the gene pool and the symbiotic- and often irreversible – impact this has on overall biodiversity.

This is not an abstract or ‘maybe one day’ problem. Just over a century ago there were over one million rhinoceros in Africa; now, poaching has directly led to the extinction of wild rhinoceros in Mozambique, most of western Africa, and many other regions across the continent. According to most reports, the number of wild rhino left in Africa hovers around 22-25,000 – that’s a reduction of around 97% over the last century. Further, according to the WWF, tigers, which could once be found across almost the whole of Asia, have had their wild range decreased by 93% over the last 100 years, and have suffered a numerical decline of 97%.

Tiger range, both historic and current. Image from WWF.

Additional to the drop of animal populations, poaching affects ecosystems. Natural ecosystems often develop a rather delicate balance between different types of fauna and their local habitat. Because of this, in terms of cause/effect the depletion of one species is analytically bound to the effects this has on other species. For example, the removal of predatory animals can result in an over-abundance of prey animals resulting in the destabilization and decline of vegetation; the decline of prey animals can lead to drops in predator numbers because of a reduction in food supply. Further, certain species are considered ‘keystone’ species in their local environment. For example, many species of animal – such as elephant – are responsible for the distribution of plant seeds and hence a local extinction of elephant has a heavy consequence for local vegetation. These changes in vegetation affect other animals along the food chain, and the circle continues.

Economic Impacts

The negative economic impacts of wildlife crime are difficult to quantify but they are very real. Across much of southern Africa wildlife tourism plays a vital role in local and even national economies and a decline in wildlife numbers due to poaching has immediate flow on effects in terms of financial cutbacks, job losses, and overall economic sustainability.

Further, as with other highly profitable illicit markets such as illegal narcotics, poachers and wildlife traffickers profit directly from state weakness: it is this weakness, which manifests itself as poor enforcement or regulatory platforms and state corruption, which facilitates the widespread existence of large criminal networks. Criminals therefore have an inherent interest in actively undermining state economic development – a particular problem in a number of already vulnerable countries in the developing world.

Health Impacts

The impact poaching may have on human health is not widely discussed, however it can be significant and the emergence of numerous zoonotic diseases has been linked directly to wildlife crime. The outbreak of SARS in Hong Kong has been traced to the human contact with and consumption of poached meat available on black wildlife markets. Ebola, one of the world’s most horrific diseases, has had outbreaks in Africa directly linked to the poaching and consumption of primates. Further, bird flu (H5N1), Monkey Pox, and Heartwater Disease are additional examples of diseases directly facilitated by the illegal wildlife trade. Indeed, according to the US Center for Disease Control (CDC), 75% of diseases reach humans through animals: a fact made more worrying because the illegal entry routes used by smugglers bringing exotic wildlife and their parts into international markets are unable to be effectively monitored, let alone quarantined and controlled.

Social Impacts

As well as the impacts listed above which all have some kind social dimension, the social impacts of poaching are harder to objectively measure and their seriousness often depends on each person’s own sense of ethics and morality. For instance, it is impossible to put a monetary value on the ability to see wild animals in their natural environment and not just in a zoo, just as it is impossible to put a monetary value on the social impact of a decline in wilderness areas. However, for many people – myself included – the natural world is a raw , inspiring and intoxicating place, and the exploration of it is a tremendous personal pleasure. What if our children could never see it the way we have? And what about their children? These are individual questions we must answer for ourselves.

The effects of poaching and the illicit wildlife trade on animal welfare is also impossible to put a monetary value on, though most people would be appalled by some of the details. Poachers of big game in Africa, like elephant and rhinoceros, are mostly unskilled marksmen who use under-powered rifles resulting in an animal being severely wounded and dying slowly. Wire snares, used to trap game, get tangled around the legs of big animals leading to horrific injuries as captured animals struggle to get free, and the necks of smaller animals, resulting in individuals being strangled to death slowly or ripping their own necks open during the struggle for freedom. The IAPF’s founder has seen a buffalo that had been caught in a snare fight so hard that it tore its own pelvis in half.

Besides shooting and snaring, there are also less conventional methods of big game poaching. There have been reports in Mozambique of poachers using land mines to hunt ivory: due to the size of an elephant the mines are not usually sufficient to kill the animal instantly and it bleeds out over many days or dies of subsequent infection. Highly organised poachers in South Africa have used helicopters to track and shoot rhino. Poachers worried about the tell-tale sound of a gunshot in a national park or game reserve sometimes resort to darting animals with a drug called M99 – a substance 1000 times more potent than morphine. In the right – re: safe – doses M99 can put a rhino to sleep in around 6 minutes and is used by authorities and game reserves to tranquilise animals for treatment or de-horning. However, poachers use a much higher dose to drop the rhino almost instantly: if the rhino survives the taking of its horn (very rare) the high dose of M99 leads to severe and lasting kidney, liver and other organ damage.

However, the inhumane practices of poachers are not only limited to African big game. Due to their ability to survive under extreme conditions exotic reptiles such as lizards and snakes are often smuggled in terrible places like the interior lining of a suitcase, an aluminium can, or even sealed inside trinkets like statues or carvings. Infant pythons are sometimes smuggled in CD cases, while some turtles get taped inside their eggs and shoved into socks for transit. Exotic birds, many endangered, are captured in massive nets, gagged or blind folded and drugged to prevent calling, and stuffed into boots, plastic tubes, or musical instruments to defeat x-ray machines. As a result of such treatment, some reports have said that up to 90% of live animals that are smuggled die in transit.

Wrapping up…

As has been argued, poaching and the illicit trade in wildlife can have significant consequences beyond those popularly known. There is far more to conservation than the stereotyped tree-hugging, slogan-branding hippies portrayed in mass media, and the motives of conservationists are deep and diverse and not solely based on preservation of life, though this is a major part of it.

Stopping poaching is not just in the interests of animals… it is in the interests of us, and in the interests of our humanity.

Thanks for reading.

Best regards,

Andy
Int. Anti-Poaching Foundation
www.iapf.org

What is Poaching?

Poaching has many forms but the term generally refers to the illegal taking or killing of wildlife – both flora and fauna. It’s a serious problem worldwide: in fact, the black market in illegal wildlife products is worth nearly $90 billion USD per annum. For the purposes of this blog, we will concentrate on animal related poaching.

Animal poaching can be divided into two categories. The first kind is subsistence poaching. This involves the killing of animals for food: in Africa, this is commonly referred to as hunting ‘bush meat’. Depending on location, the animals taken for bush meat can include gorillas, monkeys, lions, elephants, zebra and buffalo, though the definition is accurate for any wild animal killed for food.

The second kind is commercial poaching, or poaching for profit, and it can take several forms. First, it includes hunting for bush meat on a larger scale for the purposes of selling the meat on. Second, it includes the capture of live animals for export as pets, such as exotic birds, reptiles and mammals. Third, and the kind that gets the most publicity, includes the killing of certain creatures for the harvesting of their parts. For example, elephants are killed for their ivory, rhinoceros for their horn, lions and tigers for the pelts and bones, bears for their paws and bile, etc.

The severity of the problem varies depending on location, as does the type of poaching that is causing the most damage. In Zimbabwe for example, though it is affected by all kinds of poaching, the most damaging problem is arguably the subsistence poaching of timber. The widespread harvesting of wood for fuel or construction has led to drastic reductions in localised wildlife numbers and some local extinctions due to the clearing of habitat and its flow-on effects. In South Africa on the other hand, the principal problem is the poaching of animals for their parts: rhinoceros horn being the prime example. Over the last 6 years, the number of rhinoceros killed for the purpose of harvesting their horn has increased by over 7000% (not a mistake), from 13 in the whole of 2007 to almost 550 in the first 7.5 months of 2013.

So, that’s a basic outline of what poaching is, as well as some examples. Next week I’ll broach in more depth some of the factors that make poaching such a problem: we’ll detail the effects of poaching and cover who profits – and who suffers – from it.

Go well.

Andy
Int. Anti-Poaching Foundation
www.iapf.org