The illegal utilisation and trade of animals and plants is a continuing and growing threat to biodiversity. Poaching – illegal hunting – often forms a key part of this trade, and many animals, including endangered species, are at risk from poachers.
Broadly speaking, animal poaching is the capture of wild animals which are protected by law, whether this protection is because they are rare or endangered or because they live in a protected area.
Poached animals are often killed for consumption or for trade of their body parts. They may also be traded live or kept as pets, for breeding or for entertainment.
Poachers can take many different forms, from individuals seeking to feed their families, to those supplying large international criminal networks. Many of the species targeted by poachers are endangered and protected by international agreements such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and by national laws.
Poaching differs from legal hunting, which is regulated by governments. Poaching takes place across the world, with poachers often targeting wildlife in protected areas, reserves or remote areas.
Why do people poach animals?
Poaching is driven by multiple factors, including:
1. Poverty and Lack of Alternatives
There are many reasons why people poach animals, but poverty and lack of job opportunities or alternative income sources is a key reason that drives people to poaching and wildlife crime. This can include small-scale subsistence hunting.
There is often a fine line between hunting for meat and commercial poaching, as subsistence hunters may target protected species and sell these on occasion. This is why Born Free’s conservation and community engagement programmes work closely with communities to provide alternative livelihoods and sources of income, such as Village Savings and Loan Associations in Kenya, income generation in Cameroon and empowerment projects in South Africa.
2. Illegal Wildlife Trade
A white-bellied pangolin
Wildlife trade is lucrative. It is big business with high returns. It involves the buying and selling of animals, plants and their parts, often spanning countries and continents, and is the second biggest threat to species survival, after habitat loss. The illegal wildlife trade is often considered a low risk/high return activity and has attracted organised criminal networks. It is widely estimated to be worth up to $20 billion a year (excluding the trafficking of timber and fish).
Across the world, demand for some animal products, such as ivory, pangolin scales, rhino horns and tiger bones, is high. In the last 10 years, almost 10,000 rhinos were killed by poachers across Africa.
Pangolins are the world’s most trafficked animals, with diminishing numbers of Asian pangolin species leading poachers and traffickers targeting African species to meet the high demand. An estimated one million pangolins have been snatched from the wild over the past decade.
While the killing of elephants for their ivory has fallen from its peak in 2010-12, when 100,000 elephants are believed to have been killed across Africa, thousands of elephants continue to be targeted by poachers each year. While the poachers themselves do the actual killing, the big money is made by the criminal gangs who trade the animals and animal parts, often across continents.
3. Traditional Medicine
Across the world, plants and some wild animals have been used in traditional medicine for centuries. However, in recent decades, some animal parts have gained popularity in their use as traditional medicines, particularly in Asia. Hundreds of thousands of animals have been needlessly poached to supply this trade, despite scientific research proving that many animal parts offer no medicinal value.
The loss of tigers from much of their range (90%) can be partially attributed to poaching, with the illegal trade in high-value tiger products such as their bones or skins leading to huge declines in tiger numbers.
Similarly, the trade in rhino horn boomed in recent years following claims that it could be used to treat cancer, and its rise in popularity as a recreational substance or investment, primarily in Asia. This is despite rhino horn largely consisting of keratin: the same material as our hair and fingernails. Research has shown there is no medicinal value to rhino horn, yet thousands of rhinos have been needlessly killed and their horns brutally hacked off to supply this lucrative illegal trade.
4. Trophy Hunting as a cover
Trophy hunting is the killing of animals for sport or pleasure, and to obtain all or part of the body of the animal to display as a trophy. It’s typically practiced by wealthy individuals who may pay large sums of money to target and kill threatened species.
While many find the activity abhorrent and unethical, it is legal in many countries, and thousands of animals are killed by trophy hunters every year. However, in some circumstances trophy hunting is used as a ‘cover’ to obtain lucrative animal parts for illegal trade.
The targeting of threatened species by trophy hunters drives the demand for their parts and products and undermines global efforts to curb poaching and illegal trade: for example, there has been extensive media coverage of the use of hunting permits to facilitate the lucrative illegal trade in rhinoceros horn in Africa, Asia and Europe.
5. Deforestation and Habitat Loss
The greatest threat to biodiversity is habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation. Habitats are being destroyed at an alarming rate across the world and as the impacts of humans expands, wildlife is increasingly pushed to the brink or forced to adapt to human modified landscapes.
The spread of roads, settlements and agricultural land often brings animals – seeking food, water and shelter – into closer proximity with humans, making them easier targets for poachers as previously remote and inaccessible areas are opened up. This can also result in human wildlife conflict becoming a huge threat for both wildlife and people, leading to increased tensions and retaliatory killings or targeting.
In addition, as animals are forced into closer proximity with humans, there is a higher chance of zoonotic diseases (diseases that can transfer from animals to humans) being transmitted.
Impact of Animal Poaching
How the effects of poaching impact individual animals, species, habitats and ecosystems varies depending on the environment, the scale of poaching and the species targeted. From the largest land mammals to small insects, no wild animals are safe.
1. Endangered Species at Risk of Extinction
Poaching has devastated some wildlife populations. African elephants once roamed across the continent in their millions. Now, only around 415,000 remain, in large part due to poaching for ivory.
For example, in the Meru Conservation Area, where Born Free’s Saving Meru’s Giants programme operates, between 1976 and 1990, the elephant population declined by 81% to less than 300 individuals due to poaching. Thankfully, through conservation efforts and increased protections, Meru’s elephant population has steadily recovered.
But, this population remains vulnerable and without continued outreach work, education and protection, poaching could once again result in population declines. Your donation helps keep this project running and protect the elephants of Meru.
Critically endangered species such as Western Lowland Gorillas in West and Central Africa are targeted by poachers. As previously remote areas become increasingly accessible, the risk from poaching increases for species such as gorillas.
The killing, capture and consumption of all great apes is illegal across the world. Nevertheless, poachers target these animals to obtain bushmeat, which is the primary driver of decline for Western Lowland gorillas.
Our Great Ape Guardians work around the Dja Faunal Reserve in Cameroon to patrol, gather information and sensitise others of the need to prevent great ape poaching. Through the Guardians, we work with local authorities and facilitate rapid information exchanges about poaching activities.
2. Disrupting Ecosystems
Animals such as elephants, rhinos and hippos are ecosystem engineers, meaning that they play an important role in modifying and regulating ecosystems. Yet all three species are poached for their tusks, horns or teeth, to supply international demand.
Gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans disperse seeds throughout the forests, pangolins regulate termite populations and lions and tigers help regulate prey species.
Each animal, no matter how small, has an important role in keeping ecosystems and food chains in balance. Poaching artificially alters the number of individuals in an ecosystem and disrupts this delicate balance, with serious consequences for all species across the entire ecosystem, including people.
African forest elephant (c) Dave Currey
African Forest elephants play a key role in their habitats and research has found that each individual forest elephant can stimulate carbon capture. Biologists estimate that if the population of African forest elephants returned to its former size and they recovered their former range, it would increase carbon capture by 13 metric tonnes (1 metric tonne = 1,000 kg) per hectare (10,000 square meters). Removing these magnificent animals from the ecosystem, so their tusks can be sold into illegal ivory markets, not only harms elephants but also exacerbates the impact of climate change.
3. Economic Losses
The prospect of seeing some of the world’s most magnificent animals brings in significant funds through ecotourism initiatives.
Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries and is particularly important for some biodiverse developing countries. The presence of poachers and the removal of animals from their natural habitats can lead to a reduction in tourists and thereby a reduction in revenue.
A report by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in 2014 found that a single elephant could be worth more than $1.6 million over its lifetime, largely from its eco-tourism draw.
4. Connection to Organised Crime
Poaching and the illegal wildlife trade operates on the black market and has become a major, and lucrative, activity for organised crime groups. It is being increasingly linked to other forms of organised crime, corruption and armed violence.
Not only does poaching damage the environment and pose a great risk to wildlife, it also undermines the rule of law, and poses a risk to rangers, who continually put their lives at risk to protect wildlife. Annually, around 100 rangers are typically killed protecting wildlife.
5. Risk of Disease Spread
The increasing proximity of humans and animals, both domestic and wild, greatly increases the risk of disease spread among both wildlife and people. As evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, infectious diseases can spread rapidly across the world, causing devastation.
Although the original source of the COVID-19 pandemic has not been definitively determined, most scientists believe it originated from wild animals being held and sold in street markets. Around 60% of emerging infectious diseases in humans originate from animals, most of these from wildlife, but it’s only when animals are removed from their natural habitats and put under stress (such as through poaching) that diseases are likely to emerge and spread.
Dr Mark Jones, Born Free Head of Policy, shares more about how to prevent future pandemics here.
Animals Affected by Poaching
Many species are targeted by poachers for meat, for body parts that are used as ornaments or for medicinal purposes, or are taken live to be sold as exotic pets or for testing and research. Some of the most heavily poached animals include:
- Elephants – Poached for their ivory tusks used in carvings and jewellery.
- Rhinos – Hunted for their horns, falsely believed to have medicinal properties.
- Pangolins – The most trafficked mammal, sought for their meat which is considered by some as a delicacy, and for their scales which are used in traditional medicines.
- Tigers – Killed for their skins, bones, and body parts used in traditional medicine.
- Sea Turtles – Poached for their eggs, shells, and meat.
- Great Apes – Captured for the pet trade, killed for bushmeat.
- Ants – Sold to collectors across the world, a growing and lucrative trade,
