Wildlife poaching has been a problem for centuries. It threatens wildlife, disrupts ecosystems, and often leads to animal suffering. Now, experts are sharing that it is also costing Americans a ridiculous amount of money. Discover how wildlife poaching is wreaking havoc on wildlife, hunters, and Americans' wallets.
Wildlife Poaching Is Wreaking Havoc On Wildlife, Hunters, And Americans' Wallets
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It is no secret how wildlife poaching harms animals. Typically, poaching occurs through cruel methods or inhumane capture, causing harm to the animals. Additionally, poaching often leads to illegal international wildlife trafficking. Not only does that trafficking further harm the animals, but it can also hurt local economies. It also poses a threat to local people by contributing to the spread of diseases from the trafficked animals.
In addition, illegal wildlife poaching causes discord between the public and hunters, because many often confuse the two. Frequently, anti-hunting groups "often intentionally obscure, as they conflate the activities of poachers with those of legal hunters," according to OutdoorLife. It doesn't help that the majority of wildlife poaching goes unreported. OutdoorLife shares that the Boone and Crockett Club conducted a study on the matter to determine how many wildlife poachers conduct their activities undetected. That study proved that "more than 95 percent of wildlife crimes go unreported and unprosecuted." Furthermore, it shared that "those relatively few poachers who do face justice often walk with minor fines and other penalties."
Not only do these flimsy punishments fail to discourage poachers, but they also foster animosity within the hunting community. Additionally, this wildlife poaching is costing Americans thousands of dollars, but how?
How Poaching Affects American Wallets
Jon Gassett, of the Wildlife Management Institute, and Kristie Blevins, a criminologist with Eastern Kentucky University, set out on a mission. Together, they wanted to "quantify the various costs of poaching, estimating the number of animals taken illegally, the loss of opportunity for legal, license-buying hunters, uncollected license revenue for state wildlife agencies, and the replacement cost of trophy animals." What they found was that wildlife poaching has quite a fiscal cost. The study cound that "the loss of penalties and the replacement costs for poached animals to arrive at the $1.4 billion annual 'conservation cost' of poaching."
OutdoorLife shared that study leaders calculated that number by "using states' restitution for poached big-game animals and the loss of hunting-license revenue, which has a knock-on effect of loss of federal excise-tax dollars to states." Furthermore, they shared that "state's restitution penalties are established to deter poaching." The costs of that are also high. For example, the restitution cost of a whitetail deer is $2,171, and the price for a trophy-case elk is as high as $30,000. So not only is wildlife poaching harmful to the wildlife, but it also creates animosity towards law-abiding hunters and steals money from America's pockets.
