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Category: Project

Description: Despite illegal killing (poaching) being the major cause of death among large carnivores globally, little is known about the effect of implementing lethal management policies on poaching. Two opposing hypotheses have been proposed in the literature: implementing lethal management may decrease poaching incidence (‘killing for tolerance’) or increase it (‘facilitated killing’). Here, we propose a test of two opposed hypotheses that poaching (reported and unreported) of Mexican grey wolves (Canis lupus baileyi) in Arizona and New Mexico, USA, responded to changes in policy that relaxed protections to allow more wolf-killing. We employ advanced biostatistical survival and competing-risk methods to data on individual resightings, mortality and disappearances of collared Mexican wolves. We aim to provide recommendations for improving the effectiveness of US policy on environmental crimes, endangered species, and protections for wild animals. Our results have implications beyond the USA or wolves because the methods promise to transform understanding, scientific methods, and management interventions of processes and patterns in human-caused mortality among wild animals subject to high rates of poaching.