Illegal Wildlife Trades and Ecological Consequences: A Case Study of the Bird Market in Fereydunkenar, Iran

ABSTRACT

Illegal bird hunting in and around the Fereydunkenar International Wetland in Iran has a long history but one with serious ecological consequences. Such hunting has involved the mass killing of critically endangered species – such as Siberian cranes, white-headed ducks, geese, lapwings and wintering raptors – and has caused damage to regional ecosystems. The outcome has been described by conservationists and regional news commentators as a “bird genocide.” This study addresses some of the significant problems created by the illegal bird market of Fereydunkenar and explores the reasons for both the actors’ participation and the market’s resilience. The paper draws on original fieldwork – data from qualitative, in-depth interviews with 21 participants actively involved in this bird market. Actors provided various justifications and explanations for their activities, such as food and income, the ineffectiveness of formal controls alongside the supportiveness of informal social norms, and the ability to create an enterprise and attract capital based on simple commodification of nature. The case study illuminates how a traditional practice and a narrowly-focused set of behaviors persist despite the impact of related cascade effects causing harm to ecosystems that push some species to the edge of extinction. The paper therefore serves as an interdisciplinary contribution to green criminology and conservation criminology, as well as to ecological sciences, more generally.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study

Notes

¹ This is a pseudonym. As noted above, pseudonyms were used for all of the interviewees.

Additional information

Funding

This study was not funded by organization.

Notes on contributors

Seyed Ahmad Mir Mohamad Tabar

Seyed Ahmad Mir Mohamad Tabar is an Assistant Professor in Arak university, Iran. He has published several papers on green crime and economic sociology. His area of interest is environmental sociology, green crime, wildlife consumption and trade.

Nigel South

Nigel South is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for Criminology, University of Essex; Honorary Visiting Professor, School of Law and Social Sciences, University of Suffolk; and a visiting Adjunct Professor at the Crime and Justice Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology. He is a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences.

Avi Brisman

Avi Brisman (MFA, JD, PhD) is an Associate Professor in the School of Justice Studies at Eastern Kentucky University (Richmond, KY, USA), an Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Justice at Queensland University of Technology (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia), and a Conjoint Associate Professor at Newcastle Law School at the University of Newcastle (Callaghan, New South Wales, Australia).

Mohsen Noghani

Mohsen Noghani is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. Dr. Noghani’s areas of interest center on sociology of education and sociology of organization.