Let’s be honest: Death plays a significant part in wildlife conservation. Conservationists can spend years protecting wild species and their habitats, and suddenly one illegal poisoning incident can wipe out an entire vulture colony in the Republic of North Macedonia, poachers in Bulgaria can kill a recently reintroduced Cinereous Vulture or combining these illegal practices can bring the Egyptian Vulture on the age of extinction in Greece. But these animals don’t have to die in vain.
Urgent need to prioritize and prosecute wildlife crime.
Poisoning, poaching, trapping, collision, electrocution and illegal trade — all examples of severe wildlife crimes — are overlooked and under-prosecuted. Why is that? Well for starters, victims of these crimes don’t have a voice, making them powerless unless people care. Secondly, when it comes to solving these crimes, investigators face several setbacks such as remote crime scenes with degrading evidence, unreliable or no witnesses, nonexistent protocols and lack of specific training. It’s urgent to prioritize and fight these crimes head-on by conducting proper investigations and achieving convictions to deter similar cases from occurring again since impunity is often an invitation for people to continue to kill and poison wildlife. This is where the Wildlife Crime Academy (WCA) comes in to bridge the knowledge and capacity gaps, and change the attitude towards wildlife crime, to be treated like any other crime.
Wildlife Crime Academy: using CSI and forensic science to solve wildlife crimes across 9 countries
Urgent need to prioritize and prosecute wildlife crime.
Poisoning, poaching, trapping, collision, electrocution and illegal trade — all examples of severe wildlife crimes — are overlooked and under-prosecuted. Why is that? Well for starters, victims of these crimes don’t have a voice, making them powerless unless people care. Secondly, when it comes to solving these crimes, investigators face several setbacks such as remote crime scenes with degrading evidence, unreliable or no witnesses, nonexistent protocols and lack of specific training. It’s urgent to prioritize and fight these crimes head-on by conducting proper investigations and achieving convictions to deter similar cases from occurring again since impunity is often an invitation for people to continue to kill and poison wildlife. This is where the Wildlife Crime Academy (WCA) comes in to bridge the knowledge and capacity gaps, and change the attitude towards wildlife crime, to be treated like any other crime.
Wildlife Crime Academy: using CSI and forensic science to solve wildlife crimes across 9 countries