ILLEGAL TRADE IN COLORADO

Although the term “poaching” conjures scenes of far-flung lands where exotic animals such as elephants and Bengal tigers are always in demand, the practice of illegally killing or capturing wildlife isn’t just the domain of the developing world. It’s also a problem in the United States, and specifically here in Colorado. CPW issues about 3,300 poaching citations each year. Many more instances likely go undetected: By some estimates, poachers claim as many animals in the Centennial State as lawful hunters do.

According to Bob Thompson, CPW’s lead wildlife investigator, this can have devastating effects on the state’s wildlife populations. In southeastern Colorado, for example, box turtle populations have plummeted after poachers began scooping them up to sell to the pet industry. And poachers who use illegal means to target trophy animals can weaken entire herds. “When you take the dominant males out of the population, you leave the inferior males to breed,” Thompson says, “and that impacts the genetics of the herd and affects their vigor.”

 

 

ILLEGAL TRADE WORLD WIDE

A recent report by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature showed that between 1970 and 2014 the vertebrate population declined by an average of 60 percent. While this was mostly due to habitat loss, the illegal trade in wildlife—whether rhino horn, tiger bone, or animals captured for the exotic pet market—poses a growing threat to many species’ survival

The most obviously affected animals are the big, charismatic megafauna, like rhinos, elephants, tigers, and even bears. In reality, though, we’re talking about millions of individual animals of thousands of species. It spans poaching for jewelry, pets, traditional medicines, trophies, or wild meat, which some cultures consider a luxury item. This is a global trade. However, much of the demand for illegal wildlife products is in Asia, especially in China and Vietnam. That’s predominantly because wealth in those places has been increasing over the past decades, so people who previously could not afford things like ivory jewelry or rhino horn carvings now can do so. There’s more demand than there is supply.