Poaching is one of the risk factors that lead to the endangerment of large carnivores, such as big cats, wolves, and bears. But are government hunts an efficient conservation tactic to limit poaching, or are they encouraging the practice?
A team of researchers set out to find the answer, and according to the analysis conducted by Guillaume Chapron, a professor at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, “this notion – that the legal culling or hunting of large carnivores decreases poaching – has become an unquestioned truth,” isn’t supported by evidence.
Titled rather provocatively “Blood does not buy goodwill,” the report was featured in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. It’s also one of the first studies to contain an empirical evaluation of hunting as a conservation tactic.
This addition to the conservation debate is timely because it comes at a time when the federal government has decided to delist multiple once-endangered species. They also want to task the states with protecting them from now on.
Research leader Adrian Treves, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explained that “culling has this invisible effect.” Even though it might be unintentional, the government sends a signal that poaching is OK.
Over the past few years, several local governments in the United States and Europe have tried hunting as a conservation tactic concerning wolves, big cats, and bears. However, it’s difficult to evaluate the efficacy of this tactic because reliable data on poaching is scarce, due to the fact that it’s an illegal activity.
The study will add fuel to an already-controversial debate, particularly because the researchers had only mathematical modeling to rely on.
They started by gathering the best available data on wolf populations from Michigan and Wisconsin – both of which have hosted regulated hunting and culling after the wolves were no longer considered endangered.
Local governments kept records of the wolves between 1995 and 2012, helping researchers compare the changes to the population growth rate when hunting was permitted and prohibited.
“With a year-long culling policy signal, we found annual growth rate had an 83% probability to be lower,” the study reports. Researchers concluded that poaching thrives more when the government allows culling.
Image Source: Pubic Domain Images
