Poaching, in law, the illegal shooting, trapping, or taking of game, fish, or
plants from private property or from a place where such practices are
specially reserved or forbidden. Poaching is a major existential threat to
numerous wild organisms worldwide and is an important contributor to
biodiversity loss.
History
Until the 20th century most poaching was subsistence poaching—i.e., the
taking of game or fish by impoverished peasants to augment a scanty diet. In
medieval Europe feudal landowners from the king downward stringently
enforced their exclusive rights to hunt and fish on the lands they owned, and
poaching was a serious crime punishable by imprisonment. Large stretches
of forested countryside were subject to special laws to preserve the deer,
wild boars, and other beasts of the chase who provided the nobles and
royalty with sport. With the destruction of forests over the centuries and the
taking of communal or royally owned lands into private use, laws were
passed in the 17th and 18th centuries restricting hunting and shooting
rights on private property to the landowner and his sons, and the practice of
hiring gamekeepers to protect the wildlife on privately held land became
common. Given these obstacles, subsistence poaching necessarily became a
more specialized activity; during the 18th and 19th centuries gangs of
organized poachers often engaged in fierce battles against gamekeepers,
and mantraps and spring guns were hidden in the underbrush to catch
intruders.
Modern Poaching
Poaching is now usually done for sport or commercial profit, both in legal
and black markets. Poaching can be a serious threat to many wild species,
particularly those protected in wildlife preserves or national parks. Many
animal species have been limited in range or depleted in numbers,
sometimes to the point of extinction, by the depredations of market hunters
and unregulated sportsmen.
In Africa the difficulty of enforcing game codes has led to the critical
depletion of the rhinoceros, which is hunted for its horn, and of the African
elephant, which is slaughtered for its ivory. The Bengal tiger of India and
the gorilla of central Africa have similarly been threatened with extinction
by hunters operating illegally. Asian and African pangolins are heavily
poached for their meat and for the organs, skin, scales, and other parts of
the body that are valued for use in traditional medicine; as a result,
populations of all eight species have fallen dramatically during the early
21st century, and they are listed as endangered or critically endangered
species. Many species of parrots are in danger because of the pet trade, as
are many tropical fish collected illegally for aquaria. River poaching has
been a problem in some countries, causing the depletion of stocks of fish in
many areas.
Plants are also susceptible to poaching. For example, even when forests are
not completely cleared, particularly valuable trees such as rosewood or
mahogany may be illegally logged from an area, eliminating both the tree
species and all the animals that depend on it. Some species are illegally
collected not to be killed but to be kept alive and sold as ornamental plants,
and the survival of various carnivorous plants, cycads, cacti, and orchid
species is threatened by collectors.
Efforts to reduce poaching
A poached pangolin being freed after Indonesian authorities shut down a
smuggling operation in Sumatra in 2015. In 2016 all eight species of
pangolins were placed under the highest level of protection of the
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
Game management and other conservation programs throughout the world
have been instituted to counteract the effects of poaching and other threats
to wildlife, reinforced by the patrolling of game wardens to restrain
poaching for commercial profit. Sometimes conflicts can be violent, and
wardens, environmentalists, and poachers have been killed in confrontations
over especially valuable animals and poaching operations.
International agreements, such as the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species (CITES), seek to reduce poaching incentives by
regulating worldwide commercial trade in wild animal and plant species.
International border customs can also serve to deter the smuggling of
poached wildlife and wildlife products. Many governments have made public
displays of the destruction of confiscated wildlife products, such as pangolin
scales or elephant tusks, to signal that the preservation of the animals
depends on the end of the sale of their products.
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The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
This article was most recently revised and updated by Meg
Matthias.
