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Greece; community and commercial collusion in the taking of lobster
in the Canadian Maritime provinces; income supplementation in
Bolivia). In some instances, poaching is perceived as a sort of 'folk crime'
- something that everyone knows about, and that everyone allows to
happen since it is not perceived to be 'really' wrong in most respects
(unless certain informal protocols and boundaries are violated, such as
being seen to be 'greedy', too 'commericially-oriented' or 'not leaving
enough for other people'). Poaching therefore exists with considerable
community support in some locales and under some conditions.
In summary, and as indicated in Box 4.2 (which, in particular, draws
upon Forsyth et al, 1998, and Kahler and Gore, 2012), poaching is
frequently embedded within local communities in ways that belie the
possibility of imposing harsher sanctions without considerable resistance
and pushback from local people. Working with people and communities
is generally seen as a more viable way to respond to animal harms
such as poaching rather than punishing and/or alienating them. The
'attractions' of poaching need to be counter-balanced in some way, and
this will usually involve adoption of social, cultural, educational and
economic measures that make sense to the local people themselves.
Box 4.2: motivations to engage in poaching
instrumental
Food (for example, nutrition, taste)
Money (for example, on-sale, income source)
Animals as status symbol (for example, trophy or exotic consumable)
Entertainment (for example, leisure activity, fun)
Medicine (for example, remedy)
affective
Tradition (for example, cultural practices over generations)
Exhilaration (for example, buzz and excitement of the activity)
Animals as 'Other' (for example, an object, rather than subject, not deserving
empathy)
Rebellion (for example, disagreement with rules)
An emerging area of research deals with animal abuse directly, as
a core topic. The concern is with both systematic uses of animals,
such as factory farming, and one-on-one abuses of animals (Beirne,
2009; Sollund, 2008). However, what counts as animal 'abuse' varies
enormously within and between cultures and societies. Is locking up
chickens in small coops a form of abuse? What counts as 'animal' abuse
likewise varies depending upon the type and status of the animal to
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