What Is Wildlife Crime?

Abstract

Wildlife crime involves transnational actors, the threat of extinction to certain species and limitations in the range of others and crimes committed by both legal and illegal actors and even crimes committed by states. Given the diverse nature of wildlife crimes and their impacts, wildlife law is required to serve many purposes such as protection of wildlife, regulation of wildlife use and prevention of behaviour towards wildlife which society finds unacceptable, albeit not all wildlife ‘offences’ fall within the remit of the criminal law. In practice, most jurisdictions have laws protecting both companion animals and wildlife while falling short of providing either group with actual legal rights or legal personhood (Wise, 2000; Nurse and Ryland, 2012). Instead ‘the law in most all countries characterizes animals as “things” who are owned as personal property’ (Schaffner, 2011: 19). Companion and farm animals have a recognisable ‘owner’ or ‘responsible person’, whereas ‘wild animals reside within the common and belong to no one as long as the animal remains wild, unconfined, and undomesticated’ (Schaffner, 2011: 19). Wildlife law’s protective role differs considerably from that of domestic animal protection given the reduced reliance wild animals have on humans for food and the greater potential for conflict between wildlife and human interests, particularly in developing world settings.