Evaluating the prevalence and spatial distribution of giraffes injured by non‐target poaching

Abstract

AbstractIllegal harvest (poaching) is a geographically widespread threat to animal populations. Wire snares are a common poaching technique used in the Global South and are indiscriminate with respect to species, age, and sex of individual animals that they capture. When caught, relatively large mammals frequently break free from the snares, suffering injuries in the process. The prevalence of snaring injuries as well as the ecological and conservation implications of such patterns have not been widely investigated for many animal populations. We evaluated the prevalence and spatial distribution of giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis) with snaring injuries in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, a system experiencing high rates of wire snare poaching. We conducted photographic spatial encounter surveys along five fixed road transects. We photographed detected giraffes, recorded whether a snaring injury was present, and identified individuals via autonomous image processing of pelage patterns. We fitted a spatial capture‐recapture (SCR) model to the encounter history data to estimate abundance and predict the spatial distribution of injured giraffes. We detected 1306 (sub) adult giraffes from the surveys and predicted 1939 (±80) via the SCR model. We encountered 26 giraffes with snaring injuries, corresponding to a population‐level snaring rate of 1.4%. Individuals with higher movement scales were more at risk of being snared. Though not fatal across the three‐month duration of this study, the injuries likely lead to secondary infections, disability, and potentially death in the long term. We explore the implications of bearing snaring injuries for ecology, behavior, and conservation of affected species.