Assessing the Impact of the Economic Structure and Ecological Consequences on the Distribution of Illegal Hunting against Terrestrial Species

ABSTRACT

Illegal hunting threatens conservation, but little research has explored structural correlates of illegal hunting trends. The leading theoretical understanding of illegal hunting is from a situational crime perspective. These situational and individual studies provide vital information on the decision-making of a wildlife offender and help improve enforcement strategies. However, correlates explaining the concentration of illegal hunting across multiple locations has yet to be explored. There has not been any criminological development to examine the overall geographical distribution of illegal hunting across a nation, territory, or state. The current study applies a green criminological perspective to analyze how the production institutions of the economy correlates with the trends of illegal hunting of terrestrial species across Texas counties. Results indicate that the treadmill of production does relate to illegal hunting, suggesting that there is conflict between the economy and public over the use of the wilderness.

KEYWORDS:

• Green criminology
• illegal hunting
• public trust
• wildlife crime
• economy

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The behaviors around harvesting alligators are considered hunting rather than fishing. This is provided by the Texas statue 31 Tex. Admin. Code § 65.49. Therefore, alligators are considered terrestrial due to the legal classification of hunting violations. This classification was also considered since alligators are semi-aquatic where certain behaviors are solely on land, such as nesting.

2. There is a possibility cases with code violation pertaining to endangered species, threatened species, and non-game species are referring to birds than terrestrial animals.

3. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department advised not to use the county measurements due to a various small sampling sizes in counties. The agency argued that the measures at the ecoregion was considered more robust for analyses.

4. Piney Woods (t = 5.08, P < .001), Gulf Prairies (t = −0.38, p = .71), Post Oak Savannah (t = 2.03, p = .04), Blackland Prairies (t = −0.89, p = .38), Crosstimbers (t = 1.56, p = .12), South Texas Plains (t = −0.98, p = .33), Edwards Plateau (t = 1.51, p = .13), Rolling Plains (t = −6.71, p < .001), High Plains (t = −10. 42, p < .001), Trans Pecos (t = −7.86, p < .001). Post Oak Savannah was the only region where variance was assumed to be the same when conducting a t-test.