Applying crime science to wildlife crimes affecting primates

The illegal wildlife trade is widely recognized as a threat to biodiversity and a global crime problem estimated at tens of billions in U.S. dollars yearly. Primates are one of many animal groups impacted by wildlife crime, but a global assessment had not been conducted to direct criminological focus to specific crimes. This dissertation begins with such an assessment (Study 1), identifying habitat loss, hunting for food, and hunting for pets as correlates of a worsened endangerment status for primates. These results determined the research foci of the two subsequent chapters (illegal habitat loss and hunting for food). Crime science exploits the many ways that crime concentrates so that crime patterns and processes may be understood and reduction strategies formed accordingly. Studies 2 and 3 conform to this approach, examining the distribution of illegal deforestation across space and time (Study 2) and of poaching for meat across targets (Study 3). The first analytic component of Study 2 expands the criminology of place literature on the law of crime concentration by testing this “law” in a rural environment. Observed illegal deforestation was highly concentrated across 15 protected areas, particularly in larger parks. The second component uses a spatio-temporal regression analysis to identify the environmental and socioeconomic drivers of forest loss in one park inhabited by orangutans. During years when poverty depth was greater and in spaces within the park that were flatter, closer to the park boundary, and farther from roads and resource concessions areas, illegal forest loss was significantly more likely, indicating that these environmental and socioeconomic factors drive deforestation within the park. In Study 3, primate targets of illegal hunting for food were profiled according to CRAAVED characteristics of “hot primates,” reflecting similar crime science analyses of “hot products” (i.e., those stolen at highest rates). Locally abundant, diurnal, loudly vocal species with smaller average bodyweight and social groups were more likely to be targeted. These studies aim to demonstrate the utility of crime science to primate conservation and expand the crime science and criminology of place literatures by examining patterns of “atypical” crimes in rural environments.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference