Poaching

End of the poacher, illustration based on a painting by August Dieffenbacher, 1894

Grave of a poacher in Schliersee, quoting the first stanza of the Jennerwein song. Now and then, poached game is being placed on the grave to commemorate 'Girgl'.

Marterl at the Riederstein, near Baumgartenschneid, Tegernsee. The remains of a poacher, who never returned from a hunting expedition in 1861, were found at the site in 1897.[11]

Austria and Germany refer to poaching not as theft, but as intrusion in third party hunting rights.[12] While ancient Germanic law allowed any free man, including peasants, to hunt, especially on the commons, Roman law restricted hunting to the rulers. In Medieval Europe feudal territory rulers from the king downward tried to enforce exclusive rights of the nobility to hunt and fish on the lands they ruled. Poaching was deemed a serious crime punishable by imprisonment, but the enforcement was comparably weak until the 16th century. Peasants were still allowed to continue small game hunting, but the right of the nobility to hunt was restricted in the 16th century and transferred to land ownership. The low quality of guns made it necessary to approach to the game as close as 30 m (98 ft). For example, poachers in the Salzburg region then were men around 30 years of age, not yet married and usually alone on their illegal trade.[13]

The development of modern hunting rights is closely connected to the comparably modern idea of exclusive private property of land. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the restrictions on hunting and shooting rights on private property were being enforced by gamekeepers and foresters. They denied shared usages of forests, e.g. resin collection and wood pasture and the peasant's right to hunt and fish. However, comparably easy access to rifles increasingly allowed peasants and servants to poach by end of the 18th century.[14] Hunting was used in the 18th century as a theatrical demonstration of the aristocratic rule of the land and had a strong impact on land use patterns as well.[15] Poaching in so far interfered not only with property rights but clashed symbolically with the power of the nobility. During the years between 1830 and 1848 poaching and poaching related deaths increased in Bavaria.[16] The German revolutions of 1848–49 were interpreted as a general allowance for poaching in Bavaria. The reform of hunting law in 1849 restricted legal hunting to rich land owners and members of the bourgeoisie able to pay hunting fees; this led to disappointment among the general public, who continued to view poachers favourably.[16] Some of the frontier regions, where smuggling was important, showed especially strong resistance to this development. In 1849, the Bavarian military forces were asked to occupy a number of municipalities on the frontier with Austria. Both in Wallgau (today a part of Garmisch-Partenkirchen) and in Lackenhäuser in the Bavarian forest each household had to feed and accommodate one soldier for a month as part of a military mission to quell the uproar. The people of Lackenhäuser had several skirmishes with Austrian foresters and military that started due to poached deer. The well-armed people set against the representatives of the state were known as bold poachers (kecke Wilderer).[4] Some poachers and their violent deaths, like Matthias Klostermayr (1736–1771), Georg Jennerwein (1848–1877) and Pius Walder (1952–1982) gained notoriety and had a strong cultural impact till the present.[13] Poaching was being used then as a dare. It had a certain erotic connotation, as in Franz Schubert's Hunter's love song, (1828, Schubert Thematic Catalogue 909). The lyrics of Franz von Schobers connected unlimited hunting with the pursuit of love. Further poaching related legends and stories include the 1821 opera Freischütz till Wolfgang Franz von Kobell's 1871 story about the Brandner Kasper, a Tegernsee locksmith and poacher achieving a special deal with the grim reaper.^[5]

While poachers had strong local support until the early 20th century, Walder's case showed a significant change in attitudes. Urban citizens still had some sympathy for the hillbilly rebel, while the local community were much less in favor.[12]

Brass plaque on door at Tremedda farm dating to 1868, warning that poachers shall be shot on first sight

Poaching, like smuggling, has a long counter-cultural history. The verb poach is derived from the Middle English word pocchen literally meaning bagged, enclosed in a bag, which is cognate with "pouch".[17][18] Poaching was dispassionately reported for England in "Pleas of the Forest", transgressions of the rigid Anglo-Norman Forest Law.[19] William the Conqueror, who was a great lover of hunting, established and enforced a system of forest law. This operated outside the common law, and served to protect game animals and their forest habitat from hunting by the common people of England and reserved hunting rights for the new French-speaking Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Henceforth hunting of game in royal forests by commoners or in other words poaching, was invariably punishable by death by hanging. In 1087, a poem called "The Rime of King William" contained in the Peterborough Chronicle, expressed English indignation at the severe new laws. Poaching was romanticised in literature from the time of the ballads of Robin Hood, as an aspect of the "greenwood" of Merry England; in one tale, Robin Hood is depicted as offering King Richard the Lion Heart venison from deer illegally hunted in the Sherwood Forest, the King overlooking the fact that this hunting was a capital offence. The widespread acceptance of this common criminal activity is encapsulated in the observation Non est inquirendum, unde venit venison ("It is not to be inquired, whence comes the venison"), made by Guillaume Budé in his Traitte de la vénerie.[20] However, the English nobility and land owners were in the long term extremely successful in enforcing the modern concept of property, expressed e.g. in the enclosures of common land and later in the Highland Clearances, which were both forced displacement of people from traditional land tenancies and erstwhile common land. The 19th century saw the rise of acts of legislation, such as the Night Poaching Act 1828 and Game Act 1831 in the United Kingdom, and various laws elsewhere.

Lady Baltimore, a bald eagle in Alaska survived a poaching attempt in the Juneau Raptor Center mew on 15 August 2015

In North America, the blatant defiance of the laws by poachers escalated to armed conflicts with law authorities, including the Oyster Wars of the Chesapeake Bay, and the joint US-British Bering Sea Anti-Poaching Operations of 1891 over the hunting of seals.

Violations of hunting laws and regulations concerning wildlife management, local or international wildlife conservation schemes constitute wildlife crimes that are typically punishable.[21][22] The following violations and offenses are considered acts of poaching in the USA:

• Hunting, killing or collecting wildlife that is listed as endangered by IUCN and protected by law such as the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 and international treaties such as CITES.[21]
• Fishing and hunting without a license.[22][23]
• Capturing wildlife outside legal hours and outside the hunting season;[21][22] usually the breeding season is declared as the closed season during which wildlife is protected by law.
• Prohibited use of machine guns, poison, explosives, snare traps, nets and pitfall traps.[21]
• Other offenses of incorrect weaponry, such as the use of cartridge rifles in muzzleloader or archery season or in shotgun-only areas, or the killing of big game animals with insufficient firepower e.g. .22 Long Rifle rounds.
• Prohibited use of baiting with food, decoys or recorded calls in order to increase chances for shooting wildlife.[21]
• Hunting from a moving vehicle or aircraft.[21]
• Scouting game animals from an aircraft.
• Shining deer with a spotlight at night to impair its natural defenses and thus facilitate an easy kill is considered animal abuse.[24] This hunting method is illegal in California, Virginia, Connecticut, Florida, Michigan and Tennessee.[21]
• Taking wildlife on land that is restricted, owned by or licensed to somebody else.
• The animal or plant has been tagged by a researcher.
• Shooting an animal in a confined area (canned hunting).

Stephen Corry, director of the human-rights group Survival International, has argued that the term "poaching" has at times been used to criminalize the traditional subsistence techniques of indigenous peoples and bar them from hunting on their ancestral lands, when these lands are declared wildlife-only zones.[25] Corry argues that parks such as the Central Kalahari Game Reserve are managed for the benefit of foreign tourists and safari groups, at the expense of the livelihoods of tribal peoples such as the Kalahari bushmen.[26]

TRAFFIC brings to light many of the poaching areas and trafficking routes and helps to clamp down on the smuggling routes the poachers use to get the ivory to areas of high demand, predominantly Asia.[58]

As many as 35,000 African elephants[59] are slaughtered yearly to feed the demand for their ivory tusks. This ivory then goes on to be used in jewelry, musical instruments, and other trinkets.

Members of the Rhino Rescue Project have implemented a technique to combat rhino poaching in South Africa by injecting a mixture of indelible dye and a parasiticide into the animals' horns, which enables tracking of the horns and deters consumption of the horn by purchasers. Since rhino horn is made of keratin, advocates say the procedure is painless for the animal.[60] Another strategy being used to counter rhino poachers in Africa is called RhODIS, which is a database that compiles rhino DNA from confiscated horns and other goods that were being illegally traded, as well as DNA recovered from poaching sites. RhODIS cross-references the DNA as it searches for matches; if a match is found, it is used to track down the poachers. Africa's Wildlife Trust seeks to protect African elephant populations from poaching activities in Tanzania. Hunting for ivory was banned in 1989, but poaching of elephants continues in many parts of Africa stricken by economic decline. The International Anti-Poaching Foundation has a structured military-like approach to conservation, employing tactics and technology generally reserved for the battlefield. Founder Damien Mander is an advocate of the use of military equipment and tactics, including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, for military-style anti-poaching operations.[61][62][63] Such military-style approaches have been criticised for failing to resolve the underlying reasons for poaching, but to neither tackle "the role of global trading networks" nor the continued demand for animal products. Instead, they "result in coercive, unjust and counterproductive approaches to wildlife conservation".[64]

Chengeta Wildlife is an organization that works to equip and train wildlife protection teams and lobbies African governments to adopt anti-poaching campaigns.[65] Jim Nyamu's elephant walks are part of attempts in Kenya to reduce ivory poaching.[66]

In 2013, the Tanzanian Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism urged that poachers be shot on sight in an effort to stop the mass killing of elephants.[67] Since December 2016, anti-poaching police units in Namibia are permitted to return fire on poachers if fired upon.[68] The government of Botswana adopted a 'shoot-to-kill' policy against poachers in 2013 as a "legitimate conservation strategy" and "a necessary evil", which has reduced poaching to the point it is thought to be ‘virtually non-existent’ in the country, and that neighbouring countries like South Africa should also adopt similar measures in order to save wildlife from extinction.[69][70] In May 2018, the Kenyan government announced that poachers will face the death penalty, as fines and life imprisonment have "not been deterrence enough to curb poaching, hence the proposed stiffer sentence".[71] Human rights organizations oppose the move, but wildlife advocates support it. Save the Rhino, a UK-based wildlife advocacy organization notes that in Kenya, 23 rhinos and 156 elephants were killed by poachers between 2016 and 2017. As of March 2019, the measure is being put on the fast track to implementation by Kenyan lawmakers.[72]

Large quantities of ivory are sometimes destroyed as a statement against poaching, a.k.a. "ivory crush".[73] In 2013 the Philippines were the first country to destroy their national seized ivory stock.[74] In 2014, China followed suit and crushed six tons of ivory as a symbolic statement against poaching.[75][76]

There are two main solutions according to Frederick Chen that would attack the supply side of this poaching problem to reduce its effects: enforcing and enacting more policies and laws for conservation and by encouraging local communities to protect the wildlife around them by giving them more land rights.[35]

Nonetheless, Frederick Chen wrote about two types of effects stemming from demand-side economics: the bandwagon and snob effect. The former deals with people desiring a product due to many other people buying it, while the latter is similar but with one distinct difference: people will clamour to buy something if it denotes wealth that only a few elites could possibly afford. Therefore, the snob effect would offset some of the gains made by anti-poaching laws, regulations, or practices: if a portion of the supply is cut off, the rarity and price of the object would increase, and only a select few would have the desire and purchasing power for it. While approaches to dilute mitigate poaching from a supply-side may not be the best option as people can become more willing to purchase rarer items, especially in countries gaining more wealth and therefore higher demand for illicit goods—Frederick Chen still advocates that we should also focus on exploring ways to reduce the demand for these goods to better stop the problem of poaching.[77] Indeed, there is some evidence that interventions to reduce consumer demand may be more effective for combatting poaching than continually increased policing to catch poachers.[78] However, almost no groups deploying interventions that attempt to reduce consumer demand evaluate the impact of their actions.[79]

Another solution to alleviate poaching proposed in Tigers of the World was about how to implement a multi-lateral strategy that targets different parties to conserve wild tiger populations in general. This multi-lateral approach include working with different agencies to fight and prevent poaching since organized crime syndicates benefit from tiger poaching and trafficking; therefore, there is a need to raise social awareness and implement more protection and investigative techniques. For example, conservation groups raised more awareness amongst park rangers and the local communities to understand the impact of tiger poaching—they achieved this through targeted advertising that would impact the main audience. Targeting advertising using more violent imagery to show the disparity between tigers in nature and as a commodity made a great impact on the general population to combat poaching and indifference towards this problem. The use of spokespeople such as Jackie Chan and other famous Asian actors and models who advocated against poaching also helped the conservation movement for tigers too.[33]

In July 2019, rhino horns encased in plaster were seized in Vietnam that were being trafficked from the United Arab Emirates. Despite the ban on trade since the 1970s, poaching level of rhino horns has risen over the last decade, leading the rhino population into crisis.[80]

Poaching has many causes in both Africa and China. The issue of poaching is not a simple one to solve as traditional methods to counter poaching have not taken into the account the poverty levels that drive some poachers and the lucrative profits made by organized crime syndicates who deal in illegal wildlife trafficking. Conservationists hope the new emerging multi-lateral approach, which would include the public, conservation groups, and the police, will be successful for the future of these animals.[81][82]

Some game wardens have made use of robotic decoy animals placed in high visibility areas to draw out poachers for arrest after the decoys are shot.[83] Decoys with robotics to mimic natural movements are also in use by law enforcement.[84] The Marine Monitor radar system watches sensitive marine areas for illicit vessel movement.[85]