Hunting accelerates poaching: study debunks myth

For decades, hunting associations and even major conservation organisations such as the IUCN or WWF claimed that controlled, legal hunting could curb poaching.

The argument: those who are allowed to satisfy their need to shoot legally have less reason to act illegally. A scientific study comes, however, to an explosive and contrary conclusion: hunting promotes poaching. And so it is hardly surprising that most poachers are in truth hobby hunters holding an official licence — people, in other words, who have long been accustomed to state-legitimised killing and who perceive the line into illegality as merely formal.

The effect applies not only to wolves, but also to other predators such as lynxes, bears or birds of prey. Wherever governments authorise legal killings, it is not acceptance of the animals that rises, but the willingness to kill them illegally as well.

Science instead of hunters' tall tales

The study by Guillaume Chapron (University of Wildlife Research, Sweden) and Adrian Treves (University of Wisconsin/USA) clearly shows: in the years when wolf killings were permitted in the US states of Wisconsin and Minnesota, the wolf population grew significantly more slowly — and was held back more strongly than could be explained by the legally killed animals alone.

Or, to put it another way: poaching closes the gap.

“The modern superstition that killing is species conservation has become mainstream,” says Chapron. “This false notion is now espoused by many governments to justify killing. Our study shows that there is no scientific basis for it.”

Why hunting fuels poaching

Treves explains the mechanism as follows:

“Would-be poachers learn from the government, which kills predators to protect livestock, that they can do it better themselves. Or the government sends a signal that wolves are worth less. In this way people become poachers, and they believe the risk of being arrested keeps getting smaller.”

This dynamic is easy to grasp: if the state itself kills, why should the individual respect the animal?

Consequences for Europe and Switzerland

The results are highly relevant for the European debate, including in Switzerland: time and again, calls are made to shoot wolves “to pacify” the population or as “preventive protection” of livestock. Science now shows: the opposite happens.

State-sanctioned massacres and hobby hunting of protected wild animals must urgently be re-evaluated in the light of these findings – not on the basis of hunters' tall tales, but on the basis of scientific evidence.

Hunting programmes targeting protected wild animals are no means of pacification. They destroy trust, weaken the conservation ethic and encourage illegal killing.

Anyone who claims that “killing is species protection” is spreading a dangerous myth. True species protection lies not in pulling the trigger, but in respect for life and in the consistent protection of wild animals.