Experiments to understand illegal hunting for wildlife commodities

Live-animal commodity devaluation is proposed to demotivate illegal hunting and trade in wildlife and wildlife commodities. The idea is based on the apparently simple causation between a commodity’s value and the motivation... [ view full abstract ]

Live-animal commodity devaluation is proposed to demotivate illegal hunting and trade in wildlife and wildlife commodities. The idea is based on the apparently simple causation between a commodity’s value and the motivation to hunt, especially for wildlife commodities which are traded at extraordinary prices. For example, the horns or tusks on rhinoceros and elephants might be removed or spoiled (discoloured or poisoned) to reduce their value and demotivate hunting. Commodity devaluation is an attractive solution because it is within the power of individual population managers to implement and can be achieved quickly. Theory, however, predicts that criminal hunting behaviour will be nuanced depending on the risk to the hunter (reserve security), the proportion of the animal commodity devalued. Hunter behaviour can also be irrational and not conform to cost:benefit predictions (e.g., retribution). Unfortunately, testing the efficacy of wildlife commodity devaluation is constrained by the difficulties and risks of researching criminals and illegal trade. We overcame these constraints by designing competitive games with financial rewards to investigate hunter behaviour. Two types of game were trialled: a desktop ‘lucky-dip’-type game and an out-of-doors ‘scavenger-hunt’-type game. In both types of game, participants were randomly selected and invited to ‘hunt’ for a commodity where there was a risk and cost to being caught (security). The games were repeated at different ratios of risk and reward where the proportions of the ‘animal’ population were devalued. During the games, hunters were not always demotivated by commodity devaluation. At best, hunter behaviour was dichotomous depending on the proportion devalued. While majority (i.e., 90%) commodity devaluation demotivated hunters, moderate rates of devaluation (i.e., 50%) incentivised hunters and did not suppress the harvesting rate. The games also identify the several reasons why these apparently counter-intuitive outcomes occur, including retribution by hunters. Wildlife commodity devaluation, therefore, is unlikely to be a panacea for illegal hunting. Lastly, we describe our development of these games to teach complex ideas about behavioural economics in wildlife conservation and the use of augmented reality technologies to extend the game to larger and more context-relevant populations of players.