Illegal Hunting and Trespass

Abstract

There exists scant contemporary empirical consideration of the impacts of illegal hunting or shooting, such as damage to environments; harm to animals (native and livestock); risks of self-harm; harms to people and property; or the role of organized criminal elements. There is, though, a large volume of research related to illegal poaching, particularly poaching of endangered fauna in Africa and East Asia which has attracted transnational criminal elements. A differentiation between poaching and illegal hunting needs to be acknowledged: the former addresses notions of theft for profit; the latter often involves non-economic motivations and, in various instances, can be considered a 'folk crime', a form of political dissent, or resistance to conservation measures (see Pohja-Mykrä, 2016).